This thesis focuses on the work of queer theorist Elizabeth Freeman, building upon her thinking on the role that rhythm, relationality and eroticism play in the formation of normative embodiment and the temporal control of bodies via ‘chrononormativity’ (Freeman 2010: xii). The central argument of my thesis is that to the extent the regulation of bodies is bound up with externally imposed (chrononormative) rhythms, this regulation may be undone in two ways; first, through attendance to hypersocial connection, non-normative rhythm and queer pleasure, and second, by reading cultural texts for moments of non-normative rhythms, relations and pleasures. Doing so enables me to retheorise chrononormativity as a contingent, vulnerable and self-defeating order and to identify queer temporal resistance in cultural texts. Combining Freeman’s ideas about rhythm, hypersociality and eroticism, this thesis develops a hypererotorhythmic approach to queer theory that allows me to formulate chrononormativity in a particularly contingent, fragile and self-defeating fashion, contributing to queer theory a vulnerable vision of temporal normativity. This contribution is achieved through a theoretical engagement with Freeman’s work and through textual readings of the work of Virginia Woolf, an interlocutor of Freeman’s, and her filmic adaptors Sally Potter and Marta DiFrancesco. I interpret Freeman’s idea of the binding of bodies into normative embodiment by expanding upon the theories of rhythm cited in Time Binds (2010). Additionally, I expand upon Freeman’s own citation of Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of habitus by reading his additional concepts of practice, strategy and taste in relation to chrononormativity. I also read Woolf’s novels Orlando (1928) and The Waves (1931) and their adaptations by Potter (1992) and DiFrancesco (2016) to explicate my hypererotorhythmic approach, identify additional routes to the resistance of chrononormativity and identify further ways in which chrononormativity is vulnerable. These readings employ a form of Freemanian close reading attuned to hypererotorhythmic concerns. Reading for queer temporalities also contributes to the existing fields of work regarding temporality, sexuality and gender on Woolf and Potter and initiates academic debate on DiFrancesco’s work. I also identify how Woolf prefigures queer theory and how the modern novel’s temporal critique can challenge chrononormativity to avoid reproducing progress narratives by suggesting that queer theory is inherently more radical than past bodies of work. I also situate Freeman’s work in relation to relevant historical and theoretical contexts in a way that has not been done before, helping to build a body of work on a seminal queer theorist.
Destabilising the chrononormative: Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Freeman
Maginn, J. (Author). Feb 2026
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis