Reading for the Minor: Methodological Considerations in the Work of Paul Beatty, Erika Lopez, and Beau Sia

This project attempts to identify and mitigate one problem that arises when comparatists neglect to consider their own methodological situations in relation to the texts they compare. The comparative literature research presented here emphasizes comparison as an interpretive process that must begin with a thorough critique of the comparatist's own reading circumstances; that is, it suggests how comparison should explicate the affinities between reader and text before it emphasizes affinities between texts. The explication process outlined here is termed "reading for the minor," and this project examines selections from three contemporary authors, Paul Beatty, Erika Lopez, and Beau Sia, to show how the concept of minority is integral to both the production and reception of texts in comparison. Understood as an entangled reading process that exposes negotiation as a key method for subjective formation, reading for the minor analyzes the role of authority in interpretive strategies while it promotes the political reality of plural interpretations. These interpretations derive from networked readings and readers, and point to a reading social that situates hermeneutic practices within a hegemonic domain. Investigating limitations imposed by literary categories including genre, representation, and history, this project posits work by the three aforementioned authors as examples of minor literary production as well as examples of work that invite minor readings. The works' multiple minor configurations point to this entangled reading process that binds readers to their texts and sets the process of comparison in motion.