Around 1990 queer emerged into public consciousness. It was a term that challenged the normalizing mechanisms of state power to name its sexual subjects: male or female, married or single, heterosexual or homosexual, natural or perverse. Given its commitment to … Continue reading “Introduction”
Issue: Issue 084-085 Queer Studies
WHAT’S QUEER ABOUT QUEER STUDIES NOW?
Punk'd Theory
Tavia Nyong'oThe political scientist Cathy Cohen has proposed that queer theory and politics be reconceptualized and made more relevant to the lives and struggles of “punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens.”1 In speaking of–and on behalf of–punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens, and … Continue reading “Punk'd Theory”
The Joy of the Castrated Boy
joon oluchi leeWhen I was six years old, my mother began filling me with horror stories to snap me out of my girlhood: If you don’t stop acting like a girl and start being a boy, then we’ll have to take you … Continue reading “The Joy of the Castrated Boy”
Time Binds, or, Erotohistoriography
Elizabeth FreemanYears ago now, writing about interactions between individuals and small-scale social groups, Pierre Bourdieu declared that strategies of power consist of “playing on the time, or rather the tempo, of the action,” mainly through managing delay and surprise.1 Yet this … Continue reading “Time Binds, or, Erotohistoriography”
Tarrying with the Normative: QUEER THEORY AND BLACK HISTORY
amy villarejoFor me, queer studies has been one way to make this private, solitary, and inchoate feeling of being a fraud–a feeling that surges and subsides like a flare–into something like a critique. The feeling, it should be said, also erupts … Continue reading “Tarrying with the Normative: QUEER THEORY AND BLACK HISTORY”
Of Our Normative Strivings: AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES AND THE HISTORIES OF SEXUALITY
roderick a. fergusonIn Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique, I attempted to advance a materialist interrogation of racialized gender and sexuality. I tried to do so by theorizing the genealogy of women of color feminism as inspiration for intersectional … Continue reading “Of Our Normative Strivings: AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES AND THE HISTORIES OF SEXUALITY”
Asian Diasporas, Neoliberalism, and Family: REVIEWING THE CASE FOR HOMOSEXUAL ASYLUM IN THE CONTEXT OF FAMILY RIGHTS
chandan reddyThe sexual history of Asian diasporas is being written across nations, institutions, their publics. In this essay, I would like to speak about one privileged site and set of institutions in which the “sexual history” of the Asian diaspora is … Continue reading “Asian Diasporas, Neoliberalism, and Family: REVIEWING THE CASE FOR HOMOSEXUAL ASYLUM IN THE CONTEXT OF FAMILY RIGHTS”
Queer Times, Queer Assemblages
jasbir puarThese are queer times indeed. The war on terror is an assemblage hooked into an array of enduring modernist paradigms (civilizing teleologies, orientalisms, xenophobia, militarization, border anxieties) and postmodernist eruptions (suicide bombers, biometric surveillance strategies, emergent corporealities, counterterrorism gone overboard). … Continue reading “Queer Times, Queer Assemblages”
Race, Violence, and Neoliberal Spatial Politics in the Global City
martin f. manalansanWhat does it mean to claim a space for queers of color in the global city of New York?1 How do queer communities of color stake out a territory beyond ghettos and enclaves and beyond demarcated moments such as Pride … Continue reading “Race, Violence, and Neoliberal Spatial Politics in the Global City”
Bollywood Spectacles: QUEER DIASPORIC CRITIQUE IN THE AFTERMATH OF 9/11
gayatri gopinathSince 9/11, South Asian racialization in the United States has taken place through curious and contradictory processes. Even as the “indefinite detentions” and deportations of Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians continued unabated, the last three years saw an explosion of … Continue reading “Bollywood Spectacles: QUEER DIASPORIC CRITIQUE IN THE AFTERMATH OF 9/11”
You Can Have My Brown Body and Eat It, Too!
hiram perezQueer theory is very particular about the kinds of trouble with which it troubles itself. The problem of race in particular presents queer theory with dilemmas over which it actively untroubles itself. I speculate in this essay on the resistance … Continue reading “You Can Have My Brown Body and Eat It, Too!”
JJ Chinois's Oriental Express, or, How a Suburban Heartthrob Seduced Red America
karen tongsonThis essay was composed before eleven states–mostly red, but also blue–inscribed the cultural zeitgeist of homopanic into their state constitutions; before Ohio turned red and John Kerry conceded on 3 November 2004. Its tone is hopeful, forward-looking, one could even … Continue reading “JJ Chinois's Oriental Express, or, How a Suburban Heartthrob Seduced Red America”
Shame and White Gay Masculinity
judith halberstamWhen I first received an invitation to speak at the University of Michigan’s “Gay Shame” conference, I felt immediately that this conference was not for me. The idea of gay shame felt anachronistic, even though I knew about the activist … Continue reading “Shame and White Gay Masculinity”
Gay Rights versus Queer Theory: WHAT IS LEFT OF SODOMY AFTER LAWRENCE V. TEXAS?
teemu ruskolaIn 1986 the United States Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of a Georgia statute under which Michael Hardwick had been charged with committing “sodomy” in his home with another adult male. The Court began its analysis by disavowing any concern … Continue reading “Gay Rights versus Queer Theory: WHAT IS LEFT OF SODOMY AFTER LAWRENCE V. TEXAS?”
Uncivil Wrongs: RACE, RELIGION, HATE, AND INCEST IN QUEER POLITICS
michael cobbSomething curious has happened over the past fifteen years. For queers, in the words of John D’Emilio, “the world turned,” and now they are a central focus of mainstream politics and culture.1 Because of this increasing familiarity, queers are at … Continue reading “Uncivil Wrongs: RACE, RELIGION, HATE, AND INCEST IN QUEER POLITICS”