Nothing Wanting: Asexuality and the Matter of Absence

Advancing asexuality studies in new, queer directions-beyond identity and beyond the human We’ve all seen the page that states “this page intentionally left blank” or heard an authority figure declare “nothing to see here, folks,” and yet the so-called blank page has writing on it, and folks definitely have something to see.From the entry point of these and other paradoxical declarations of absence, KJ Cerankowski applies the aesthetics of asexuality to theorize silences, nothings, and emptiness.In the process, he explores new ways of making meaning out of the supposedly meaningless. Throughout this investigation into absences, Cerankowski moves intuitively and idiosyncratically, taking readers along a series of waypoints that include Border, the acclaimed horror film about a customs officer who can smell fear; Jenny Hval’s discomfiting novel Paradise Rot; and disabled artist Finnegan Shannon’s iconic benches.Experimental in form as well as content, Nothing Wanting offers an innovative