Cosmic Beavers: queer counter-mythologies through speculative songwriting

Truman, Sarah E, Shannon, David Ben and Yusoff, Kathryn (2023) Cosmic Beavers: queer counter-mythologies through speculative songwriting. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 28 (6). pp. 84-96. ISSN 0969-725X

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Abstract

In this article, the authors introduce the concept of a “queer counter-mythology.” They do so by discussing a speculative song they wrote as an enactment of research-creation. Research-creation names an interdisciplinary scholarly praxis where artist-scholars create the artefacts they want to think-with, rather than analysing existing cultural productions. The song discussed in this article, “Cosmic Beavers,” proposes a queer counter-mythology that reimagines the historical, colonial archive by foregrounding the stories of giant, trans-dimensional beavers who shred Lewis and Clark and use them to reinforce their Time-Dam. Drawing on this song, as well as queer theories of time and anti-colonial thinkers, the authors suggest that artistic interventions invoke speculative lures that, while not changing history, can complicate state-sanctioned archives and narratives of the past and future: they frame this intervention as a queer counter-mythology.