ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that “Self-Portrait in Twenty-Three Rounds” allows us to read Close to the Knives as a text that occupies a common horizon between queer theory and disability studies. It addresses the relationship between historical experience and material embodiment by drawing from the methodological resources of rhythmanalysis, a concept originally developed by the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre. The chapter provides a visceral snapshot of a moment that represented a crucial historical juncture in both the political regulation of sexuality and the meaning of disability. In her 1984 book, The Disabled State Deborah A. Stone described the pivotal role that the category of disability plays within the postwar liberal welfare state. The final chapters of Close the Knives are filled with devastating accounts of Wojnarowicz’s experiences watching his friends die from AIDS – experiences that inevitably shape his dawning awareness of his own mortality and impending death following his AIDS diagnosis in 1988.
