Bodies, Borders and Becomings: Queerness, Race, Culture and the Human Interaction in Zadie Smith's “Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets”

Probal Ganguly

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i06.60029

Bodies, Borders and Becomings: Queerness, Race, Culture and the Human Interaction in Zadie Smith's “Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets”

Author(s)	Mr. Probal Ganguly
Country	India
Abstract	This paper entails a close reading of Zadie Smith’s “Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets” and a textual exploration of human interaction through the critical intersections of race, gender, and queerness within the present Western culture. In doing so, I shall attempt to elucidate that the instability of identity in postmodern urban life can be traced through the tenuous identity of a middle-aged Black drag queen presented by the writer. Miss Adele, who has had to struggle against microaggressions and alienation in a society dominated by white and heteronormative individuals is forms the central axis of this narrative. The discussion relies on intersectionality, performativity, and affect theories to examine the problematization of social legibility and cultural belonging by Smith. Placing the narrative in the contexts of embodiment and politics of visibility, the paper reflects on how corporeality becomes a disputable territory where exclusion and desire are negotiated at the same time. The paper thereby repositions Miss Adele as a subject embodying resistance and precarity as the conflicts between cultural assimilation, bodily selfhood, and social othering come to a head in the twenty-first century.
Keywords	Zadie Smith, Queerness, Race, Culture, Othering, Misrecognition
Field	Sociology > Linguistic / Literature
Published In	Volume 7, Issue 6, November-December 2025
Published On	2025-11-13
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i06.60029

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Bodies, Borders and Becomings: Queerness, Race, Culture and the Human Interaction in Zadie Smith's “Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets”

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