Toward a Trans Rural Imaginary: Representation, Counterpublics, and Space in National Anthem

Authors

  • Catherine Faith Gastin FSU Jena

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5283/copas.418

Keywords:

Trans Representation, Trans Rurality, Queer Rurality, Trans Geography, Queer Cinema, American West

Abstract

This article examines Luke Gilford’s film National Anthem (2023) as a representational intervention into dominant imaginaries of trans visibility, rural space, and American national identity. Drawing on Michael Warner’s theorization of publics and counterpublics and extending it to explicitly consider their discursive implications for space, I argue that the film constructs a trans counterpublic grounded in the visual and symbolic terrain of the American West. By situating trans embodiment within rural aesthetics and practices recognizable to a dominant US-American public, National Anthem reimagines rural space as a site of queer belonging, challenging the presumed incompatibility between trans life, rurality, and US national identity. 

Author Biography

  • Catherine Faith Gastin, FSU Jena

    Catherine Faith Gastin (they/she) is a PhD candidate, instructor, and research assistant at Friedrich Schiller University (FSU) Jena, Germany. Faith completed their B.A. in the United States before relocating to Germany and earning her M.A. in English and American Studies at FSU in 2024. Faith’s in-progress doctoral dissertation focuses on trans visibility, representation, and space in contemporary fictional texts. Their research interests include trans and queer studies, gender studies, feminist literary criticism, contemporary literature, new media, mobility, and spatial theory.

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Published

2026-09-10

Issue

Vol. 27 No. 1 (2026): Crisis and Resilience in American Literature, Culture, History, and Politics

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Catherine Faith Gastin

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.

How to Cite

Gastin, Catherine Faith. “Toward a Trans Rural Imaginary: Representation, Counterpublics, and Space in National Anthem”. Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, Sept. 2026, pp. 24-40, https://doi.org/10.5283/copas.418.