Topographies of Gendered Violence: (Trans)Forming Hospitality in Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars

Beatriz Hermida Ramos

doi:10.5007/2175-8026.2025.e103760

Autores

Beatriz Hermida Ramos Universidad de Salamanca https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1173-6406

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2025.e103760

Palavras-chave:

Science Fiction, Spatiality, Hostipitality, Queerness, Queer Space

Resumo

In this article, I explore Ryka Aoki’s science fiction novel, Light from Uncommon Stars (2021) and its depiction of social and spatial violence against trans* women in a North American context. I contend that Aoki presents instances of what Derrida describes as hostipitality, a blending of hospitality and hostility, to denounce, through speculation, the extreme vulnerability of trans* racialized women in the United States, and the way in which patterns of exclusion and abjectification can be (re)produced in queer spaces. Aoki’s depiction of spatiality and failed hospitality thus highlights the unique (and often ignored) forms of violence experienced by trans* racialized women through the inclusion of science fiction elements.

Biografia do Autor

Beatriz Hermida Ramos, Universidad de Salamanca

PhD candidate at the English Department of University of Salamanca, where I have been granted a research fellowship co-financed by the Junta de Castilla y León and the European Social Fund (ORDEN EDU/1868/2022). My PhD thesis, supervised by Dr. Paula Barba Guerrero, focuses on the intersections between science fiction, queer utopianism and narrative hospitality.

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