‘Glimpses of Arcadia’ : queer spectralities in Shola von Reinhold’s Lote

Abstract

This article explores the enactment of queer spectralities in Shola von Reinhold’s novel Lote (2020). Ever since Derrida’s Specters of Marx (1933), spectrality has evolved into an influential concept within the humanities and social sciences, yet despite their shared poststructural origins, the resonances between queerness and spectrality remain undertheorised. Building on the works of Carla Freccero, Elizabeth Freeman, and Lisa Blackman, I propose an understanding of spectrality informed by queer affects that, in Eve Sedgwick’s words, do not signify monolithically. This form of spectrality bears reparative affordances towards both the haunting and the haunted, without falling into the traps of heteronormative teleologies. Shola von Reinhold’s novel enacts these very spectralities in its various spectral bodies, spaces, and texts. In connecting two spectralised Black queer women across generations, Lote examines not only Black trans visibility but also the ambiguous effects of archival and canonical resuscitation for marginalised artists. Hauntological encounters with the past may lead to moments of queer joy and mutual recognition, but they cannot – and should not – undo the painful discriminations that facilitated past spectralisations in the first place.