To categorize or not to categorize?

This is the question that dominates the works in ISMLL, as I am aptly reminded when Donadey and Lionnet state in their essay, Feminisms, Genders, Sexualities, “the corresponding essays in this book are most productively read in dialogue with one another” (225). I find this concept to be a terribly frustrating dichotomy, as all of the dialogues within the text demand their own established category.
The problem that every writer faces when they are subjected to interpretation is that interpretations tend not to individuate. Writers (in general) are not looked at with great attention to their individuality and uniqueness. I feel that scholars (and readers) miss important details because – perhaps for survival reasons – we need to generalize. As a student, I see it as part of my responsibility to rein in the tendency to compare and pigeonhole.
Donadey and Lionnet allude to this when recognizing that Postcolonial feminist writers’ texts tend to be nonlinear narratives that rewrite history through the use of fragmented form (229). While Donadey and Lionnet formulate several similar issues between categories in literature, the fragmentation of voice seems to synthesize into something else. As if, the inclination to break things down is how we make things comprehensible. Experience doesn’t come in a clear narrative – it’s “a more complex story that depends on internal fracture and difference” (228). I feel it is critical to recognize this fragmentation within all categories of literature today as a reflection of the way we live now.