# Antinormativity notwithstanding: The normative male author and politics of queer literary interpretation

## TL;DR

This paper explores how queer theory and masculinity studies can move beyond a focus on rejecting norms to better understand literature and gender.

## Contribution

It introduces the concept of the 'normative male author' as a new framework for post-antinormative queer literary analysis.

## Key findings

- The uncritical use of antinormativity in queer theory can oversimplify normativity as static and regressive.
- A post-antinormative approach can offer richer insights into the intersections of queer politics, literature, and masculinity.
- The 'normative male author' concept provides a way to rethink these intersections beyond antinormative assumptions.

## Abstract

Setting off from the recent critical turn towards habitual antinormativity in queer theory, this article reconstructs various conceptualizations, contestations and retheorizations of normativity and antinormativity in queer theory and masculinity studies. While a number of contemporary gender-focused literary scholars have shown the ways in which the uncritical adoption of antinormative presuppositions results in a reductive understanding of normativity as necessarily static and backward-looking, the issue of what a post-antinormative queer theory would look like remains open to speculation. Drawing on these studies, the article formulates a concept of the “normative male author” as an exercise in post-antinormative perspective on the connections between the politics of queer inquiry, literature and masculinity.