Plastic and Queer Desire — A Queer Ecological Reading of Josef Winkler’s Contemporary Writing

This paper examines the relationship between plastic matter and the queer in Roppongi. Requiem für einen Vater (2007) and Der Stadtschreiber von Kalkutta (2019), two texts by contemporary Austrian author Josef Winkler that depict the narrators’ travels to India and Japan. Two modes of critique within queer ecological theory are found to be fruitful for the analysis of Winkler’s text: a ‘queer as noun’ model focusing on queer people, here the narrator and his relationship to the environment, as well as the ‘queer as a verb’ critique, questioning and defamiliarizing foundational categories such as humanity and futurity. Based on Heather Davis’ invitation to imagine plastic, rather than biological children, as our planetary legacy, the function of plastic matter and its potential to question inside-outside dichotomies and divisions such as human vs human-made or waste vs nature are discussed. Despite a near dystopian vision on India, Winkler’s work also conveys a ‘queer desire’ — a desire that cannot undo the effects of plastic’s omnipresence or its participation in waste colonialism, but suggests ways of living with plastic. The work is permeated with what Davis calls ‘a queer ecological sensibility’, which instead of yearning for a pristine past offers a curious and openminded perspective on the present.