“Global in Spirit”: Deep Reading Transgenre

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I theorize the notion of “transgenre” in which “trans” indexes multiple possibilities: i.e., an analysis of transgender cultural production through the more explicitly mediated logics of transnational racial capitalism. To ground these investments, I read the Netflix show Sense8 as a cultural text that mines these multiple meanings of “trans.” My analysis suggests that the show's investment in corporeal transgression shimmers over geographical surfaces, offering an understanding of trans aesthetics that elides over geopolitical and racial difference. Thus, the article proposes a deep reading of Sense8 (and transgenres) to understand “trans*” beyond the visual aesthetics of polyphony and boundary transgression. It considers the material conditions that subtend “trans*” in order to render it a more capacious category—one that does not simply gloss over difference, but functions as a way to track the overlaps among racial, transnational, and queer formations.