Stephen D. Moore, Kent L. Brintnall, and Joseph A. Marchal
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823277513
- eISBN:
- 9780823280483
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823277513.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This introduction situates the entire collection within key historical and conceptual turns in queer theories, marking along the way how the various chapters apply, challenge, extend, and complicate ...
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This introduction situates the entire collection within key historical and conceptual turns in queer theories, marking along the way how the various chapters apply, challenge, extend, and complicate what queer theory was, is, and will be. In particular, it focuses on some of the most significant, and most discussed works in queer theory and their interrogations of both temporality and affect. To map the impact of these, the bulk of this introduction provides a summative sketch of four “turns,” orienting the reader to some of the more recent disorientations that have complicated the field of queer theory. Thus, this introduction narrates four, interrelated turns—an antinormative, an antisocial, a temporal, and an affective turn—signaling where the chapters of the collection turn and twist these in new and important ways, not only within biblical, theological, and religious studies, but within queer studies at large. Indeed, the twist is that these turns have long carried theological resonance and echoed religious themes, all while the religiously oriented have grappled in still other queer ways with apocalypse and memory, utopia and trauma, apophasis and violence, affect and desire. This more explicit coupling already feels like a long time coming.Less
This introduction situates the entire collection within key historical and conceptual turns in queer theories, marking along the way how the various chapters apply, challenge, extend, and complicate what queer theory was, is, and will be. In particular, it focuses on some of the most significant, and most discussed works in queer theory and their interrogations of both temporality and affect. To map the impact of these, the bulk of this introduction provides a summative sketch of four “turns,” orienting the reader to some of the more recent disorientations that have complicated the field of queer theory. Thus, this introduction narrates four, interrelated turns—an antinormative, an antisocial, a temporal, and an affective turn—signaling where the chapters of the collection turn and twist these in new and important ways, not only within biblical, theological, and religious studies, but within queer studies at large. Indeed, the twist is that these turns have long carried theological resonance and echoed religious themes, all while the religiously oriented have grappled in still other queer ways with apocalypse and memory, utopia and trauma, apophasis and violence, affect and desire. This more explicit coupling already feels like a long time coming.
Hiram Pérez
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479818655
- eISBN:
- 9781479846757
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479818655.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gay and Lesbian Studies
Expanding on the notion of the primal “brown body” mediating gay modernity, this chapter argues that this brown body (frequently, though not exclusively, embodied as “Latino”) mediates gay male ...
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Expanding on the notion of the primal “brown body” mediating gay modernity, this chapter argues that this brown body (frequently, though not exclusively, embodied as “Latino”) mediates gay male shame. Andy Warhol’s film, Screen Test #2, Douglas Crimp’s essay on that film, “Mario Montez, For Shame,” and the “Gay Shame” conference held at the University of Michigan in 2003, which opened with a showing of the Warhol film, provide the primary texts for analysis. Crimp (and “Gay Shame” by extension) deploys monolithic constructions of “Puerto Rican” and “Catholic” in order to project and universalize (the urbane, white gay man’s) shame onto Montez’s othered (or browned) body. The chapter argues that Montez, rather than merely providing the passive object of Warhol’s experiments in camera-technique and exposure, skillfully pirates the film’s authority in ways that remain illegible to Crimp’s construction of gay shame.Less
Expanding on the notion of the primal “brown body” mediating gay modernity, this chapter argues that this brown body (frequently, though not exclusively, embodied as “Latino”) mediates gay male shame. Andy Warhol’s film, Screen Test #2, Douglas Crimp’s essay on that film, “Mario Montez, For Shame,” and the “Gay Shame” conference held at the University of Michigan in 2003, which opened with a showing of the Warhol film, provide the primary texts for analysis. Crimp (and “Gay Shame” by extension) deploys monolithic constructions of “Puerto Rican” and “Catholic” in order to project and universalize (the urbane, white gay man’s) shame onto Montez’s othered (or browned) body. The chapter argues that Montez, rather than merely providing the passive object of Warhol’s experiments in camera-technique and exposure, skillfully pirates the film’s authority in ways that remain illegible to Crimp’s construction of gay shame.
Patrick R. Mullen
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199746699
- eISBN:
- 9780199950270
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746699.003.0000
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The introduction elaborates the key concepts of the book: homosexuality, value, and labor. It contextualizes the importance of these concepts for modern Irish history and culture. Furthermore, it ...
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The introduction elaborates the key concepts of the book: homosexuality, value, and labor. It contextualizes the importance of these concepts for modern Irish history and culture. Furthermore, it argues that the study brings together currently alienated critical discussions that both trace themselves to Foucault’s History of Sexuality: queer theory that has developed from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s reading of Foucault and studies of empire engaged with the work of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. The chapter makes connections among queer theory, Irish studies, modernist studies, and theories of empire.Less
The introduction elaborates the key concepts of the book: homosexuality, value, and labor. It contextualizes the importance of these concepts for modern Irish history and culture. Furthermore, it argues that the study brings together currently alienated critical discussions that both trace themselves to Foucault’s History of Sexuality: queer theory that has developed from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s reading of Foucault and studies of empire engaged with the work of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. The chapter makes connections among queer theory, Irish studies, modernist studies, and theories of empire.
Jennifer Tyburczy
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226315102
- eISBN:
- 9780226315386
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226315386.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
Chapter three transitions to temporary and explicit displays of queer sexuality in museums, specifically examining how the emotional habitus on sexual display is managed through unofficial museum ...
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Chapter three transitions to temporary and explicit displays of queer sexuality in museums, specifically examining how the emotional habitus on sexual display is managed through unofficial museum policy in the late twentieth century. This period, sometimes referred to as the “culture wars,” marks a pivotal moment in the institutionalization of certain sexual display policies such as warning signs that continue to influence the ways in which sexual material culture is consumed in museums. The final section of the chapter juxtaposes the politics and performances of display in temporary sex exhibitions in mainstream museums to the controversy surrounding the display of sex toys at the GLBT History Museum in San Francisco. This section examines what happens to queer sex when it is displayed in a museum dedicated to representing queer lives and what this means for the application of queer theory in museum practice. The chapter ends by examining theoretical ruminations on the supposed death of queer theory and argues that now is not the time to abandon queer theory, and that now more than ever, theorists and museum practitioners need queer praxis.Less
Chapter three transitions to temporary and explicit displays of queer sexuality in museums, specifically examining how the emotional habitus on sexual display is managed through unofficial museum policy in the late twentieth century. This period, sometimes referred to as the “culture wars,” marks a pivotal moment in the institutionalization of certain sexual display policies such as warning signs that continue to influence the ways in which sexual material culture is consumed in museums. The final section of the chapter juxtaposes the politics and performances of display in temporary sex exhibitions in mainstream museums to the controversy surrounding the display of sex toys at the GLBT History Museum in San Francisco. This section examines what happens to queer sex when it is displayed in a museum dedicated to representing queer lives and what this means for the application of queer theory in museum practice. The chapter ends by examining theoretical ruminations on the supposed death of queer theory and argues that now is not the time to abandon queer theory, and that now more than ever, theorists and museum practitioners need queer praxis.
Patrick R. Mullen
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199746699
- eISBN:
- 9780199950270
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746699.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Is Irish history at the dawn of the twenty-first century still, as Stephen Dedalus quipped, a nightmare? With the demise of the Celtic Tiger, the collapse of the housing bubble, and the sex abuse ...
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Is Irish history at the dawn of the twenty-first century still, as Stephen Dedalus quipped, a nightmare? With the demise of the Celtic Tiger, the collapse of the housing bubble, and the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church, Ireland is an island looking for a new story. This book argues that queer culture has a vital role to play in the creation of a reinvigorated national image for the Republic and for Northern Ireland. Looking back to the first wave of Irish modernism in the works of Oscar Wilde, John Millington Synge, Roger Casement, and James Joyce, the author reveals how these writers deployed queer aesthetics to shape inclusive forms of national affiliation as well as to sharpen anti-imperialist critiques. Turning to Ireland’s postmodernist boom in the works of Patrick McCabe, Neil Jordan, and Jamie O’Neill, the book shows that queer sensibilities and style remain key cultural resources for negotiating the political and economic realities of globalization. Irish queer aesthetics operate as both a mode of self-making and a novel form of social labor linked to modern transformations of capitalism. Situating his work in relation to Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality, the author brings together the disparate fields of queer theory and theories of empire to promote Irish culture’s contributions to a more just world order. This book engages an array of sources and media to make an original contribution to Irish and modernist studies, the history of sexuality, and theories of economic and aesthetic value.Less
Is Irish history at the dawn of the twenty-first century still, as Stephen Dedalus quipped, a nightmare? With the demise of the Celtic Tiger, the collapse of the housing bubble, and the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church, Ireland is an island looking for a new story. This book argues that queer culture has a vital role to play in the creation of a reinvigorated national image for the Republic and for Northern Ireland. Looking back to the first wave of Irish modernism in the works of Oscar Wilde, John Millington Synge, Roger Casement, and James Joyce, the author reveals how these writers deployed queer aesthetics to shape inclusive forms of national affiliation as well as to sharpen anti-imperialist critiques. Turning to Ireland’s postmodernist boom in the works of Patrick McCabe, Neil Jordan, and Jamie O’Neill, the book shows that queer sensibilities and style remain key cultural resources for negotiating the political and economic realities of globalization. Irish queer aesthetics operate as both a mode of self-making and a novel form of social labor linked to modern transformations of capitalism. Situating his work in relation to Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality, the author brings together the disparate fields of queer theory and theories of empire to promote Irish culture’s contributions to a more just world order. This book engages an array of sources and media to make an original contribution to Irish and modernist studies, the history of sexuality, and theories of economic and aesthetic value.
Cressida J. Heyes
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195310535
- eISBN:
- 9780199871445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310535.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter addresses the issue of how — in theory and in practice — feminism should engage bisexuality, intersexuality, transsexuality, transgender, and other emergent identities (or ...
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This chapter addresses the issue of how — in theory and in practice — feminism should engage bisexuality, intersexuality, transsexuality, transgender, and other emergent identities (or anti-identities) that reconfigure both conventional and conventionally feminist understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality. How feminists should imagine and create communities that take the institutions and practices of sex, gender, and sexuality to be politically relevant to freedom, or how might such communities incorporate our manifest and intransigent diversity, and build solidarity, is discussed with reference to the leitmotif of transgender. A critical analysis is made of two very different feminist texts: the 1994 reissue of Janice Raymond's notorious The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (originally published in 1979) and Bernice Hausman's 1995 book Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender. This chapter shows that the differences between the ethical and political dilemmas faced by feminists who are transgendered and those who are not are not as great as some theorists have suggested.Less
This chapter addresses the issue of how — in theory and in practice — feminism should engage bisexuality, intersexuality, transsexuality, transgender, and other emergent identities (or anti-identities) that reconfigure both conventional and conventionally feminist understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality. How feminists should imagine and create communities that take the institutions and practices of sex, gender, and sexuality to be politically relevant to freedom, or how might such communities incorporate our manifest and intransigent diversity, and build solidarity, is discussed with reference to the leitmotif of transgender. A critical analysis is made of two very different feminist texts: the 1994 reissue of Janice Raymond's notorious The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (originally published in 1979) and Bernice Hausman's 1995 book Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender. This chapter shows that the differences between the ethical and political dilemmas faced by feminists who are transgendered and those who are not are not as great as some theorists have suggested.
Nicholas Royle
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748632954
- eISBN:
- 9780748671625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748632954.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter deals with the relationship between deconstruction and queer theory. It is noted that ‘the more fashionable Queer became, the more it was appropriated by those who wanted to be ...
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This chapter deals with the relationship between deconstruction and queer theory. It is noted that ‘the more fashionable Queer became, the more it was appropriated by those who wanted to be fashionable and the more inclusive and meaningless the term became’. In Jacques Derrida's view, deconstruction inherits something of the condemnation of ‘spontaneism’ in V. I. Lenin. Derrida's ‘crypto-communist legacy’ entails thinking of the ‘crypto-’, of the hidden and secret. ‘Queer theory’ would have to do with deferred effect and the incalculable, with what cannot be ‘anticipated in advance’; and indeed that this can and must include the possibility of the disappearance or obsolescence of the term ‘queer’ itself. It then argues that homosexuality and queerness constitute a crucial aspect of all Jonathan Dollimore's novels. If Derrida's work argues for, while enacting, a queering of being, the same can be said of time: deconstruction queers being and time.Less
This chapter deals with the relationship between deconstruction and queer theory. It is noted that ‘the more fashionable Queer became, the more it was appropriated by those who wanted to be fashionable and the more inclusive and meaningless the term became’. In Jacques Derrida's view, deconstruction inherits something of the condemnation of ‘spontaneism’ in V. I. Lenin. Derrida's ‘crypto-communist legacy’ entails thinking of the ‘crypto-’, of the hidden and secret. ‘Queer theory’ would have to do with deferred effect and the incalculable, with what cannot be ‘anticipated in advance’; and indeed that this can and must include the possibility of the disappearance or obsolescence of the term ‘queer’ itself. It then argues that homosexuality and queerness constitute a crucial aspect of all Jonathan Dollimore's novels. If Derrida's work argues for, while enacting, a queering of being, the same can be said of time: deconstruction queers being and time.
Kaye Mitchell
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474461849
- eISBN:
- 9781474481250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474461849.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Chapter 1 begins with Michael Warner’s question, ‘What will we do with our shame?’, and proceeds to consider, and to critique, the revisiting of shame in much recent queer theory – a revisiting that ...
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Chapter 1 begins with Michael Warner’s question, ‘What will we do with our shame?’, and proceeds to consider, and to critique, the revisiting of shame in much recent queer theory – a revisiting that generally seeks to mine that affect for its positive political potential.
The chapter assesses the uses and limitations of ‘queer shame’, via a consideration, first, of contemporary queer theory, and second, of the recent republication – and implied ‘recuperation’ – of the formerly shameful sub-genre of mid-century lesbian pulp fiction. Through readings of Ann Bannon’s Women in the Shadows (1959/2002) and Della Martin’s Twilight Girl (1961/2006), the chapter focuses particularly on questions concerning the (in)visibility and (un)intelligibility of gender and race, and matters of performance and ‘passing’. It shows how, in both novels, non-whiteness becomes a site of both fascination and shame, functioning indeed as both an intensifier of queer shame and a mirror of/analogy for that shame, in what might be viewed as a troubling case of shame appropriation.Less
Chapter 1 begins with Michael Warner’s question, ‘What will we do with our shame?’, and proceeds to consider, and to critique, the revisiting of shame in much recent queer theory – a revisiting that generally seeks to mine that affect for its positive political potential.
The chapter assesses the uses and limitations of ‘queer shame’, via a consideration, first, of contemporary queer theory, and second, of the recent republication – and implied ‘recuperation’ – of the formerly shameful sub-genre of mid-century lesbian pulp fiction. Through readings of Ann Bannon’s Women in the Shadows (1959/2002) and Della Martin’s Twilight Girl (1961/2006), the chapter focuses particularly on questions concerning the (in)visibility and (un)intelligibility of gender and race, and matters of performance and ‘passing’. It shows how, in both novels, non-whiteness becomes a site of both fascination and shame, functioning indeed as both an intensifier of queer shame and a mirror of/analogy for that shame, in what might be viewed as a troubling case of shame appropriation.
Shannon Winnubst
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172950
- eISBN:
- 9780231539883
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172950.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
By following out the argument that the classic social authority of the Symbolic function is waning in the neoliberal episteme, I argue that Althusserian interpellation fails to capture the kinds of ...
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By following out the argument that the classic social authority of the Symbolic function is waning in the neoliberal episteme, I argue that Althusserian interpellation fails to capture the kinds of subject formation underway in it. I then draw the connection directly to the Althusserian conceptualizations of social difference we inherit from early theorists of queer theory, specifically Judith Butler and Jose Esteban Muñoz. By tracing the Althusserian roots of these two theorists, I demonstrate how the dominant understandings of gender and race spawned by queer theory may be insufficient for thinking resistance in the neoliberal episteme.Less
By following out the argument that the classic social authority of the Symbolic function is waning in the neoliberal episteme, I argue that Althusserian interpellation fails to capture the kinds of subject formation underway in it. I then draw the connection directly to the Althusserian conceptualizations of social difference we inherit from early theorists of queer theory, specifically Judith Butler and Jose Esteban Muñoz. By tracing the Althusserian roots of these two theorists, I demonstrate how the dominant understandings of gender and race spawned by queer theory may be insufficient for thinking resistance in the neoliberal episteme.
Kenneth B. Kidd
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780823289592
- eISBN:
- 9780823297207
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823289592.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Chapter 3 entertains the idea that children’s literature might also be called a literature for minors, and even a minor literature as conceptualized by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Children are ...
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Chapter 3 entertains the idea that children’s literature might also be called a literature for minors, and even a minor literature as conceptualized by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Children are legally minors, but adults can be minors too, culturally if not also legally. Such an understanding of children’s literature broadens our sense of its purpose. The chapter begins with Walter Benjamin’s attention to childhood and children’s forms as a baseline for critical thinking about “minors.” It then traces the reception history of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, the Anglophone children’s classic that most closely approaches recognition as theory. Finally, the chapter explores the idea that some children’s literature functions as queer theory for kids, discussing a wide range of texts including A Series of Unfortunate Events. The chapter concludes with a reading of Alison Bechdel’s memoir Are You My Mother?, seemingly for adults but preoccupied with queer childhood.Less
Chapter 3 entertains the idea that children’s literature might also be called a literature for minors, and even a minor literature as conceptualized by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Children are legally minors, but adults can be minors too, culturally if not also legally. Such an understanding of children’s literature broadens our sense of its purpose. The chapter begins with Walter Benjamin’s attention to childhood and children’s forms as a baseline for critical thinking about “minors.” It then traces the reception history of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, the Anglophone children’s classic that most closely approaches recognition as theory. Finally, the chapter explores the idea that some children’s literature functions as queer theory for kids, discussing a wide range of texts including A Series of Unfortunate Events. The chapter concludes with a reading of Alison Bechdel’s memoir Are You My Mother?, seemingly for adults but preoccupied with queer childhood.
Laura Doan
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226001586
- eISBN:
- 9780226001753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226001753.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Social History
Recent queer history has begun to demonstrate that “queer” is very much a historical and historicized category. New work on the variations of sexuality has shown what a queer historical practice—as ...
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Recent queer history has begun to demonstrate that “queer” is very much a historical and historicized category. New work on the variations of sexuality has shown what a queer historical practice—as an epistemology and a methodology—might look like. However, progress in the development of queer historical practice belies the persistence of an “uncomfortable tension” between lesbian/gay history and queer studies. This chapter examines the results of the border crossings between academic history and queer studies in order to clarify what is at stake in determining how or if the history that outsiders produce differs from that of professionals. Some queer critics fashion a historical practice to suit their arguments and show little inclination to deepen their understanding of its range and diversity. Some trained historians, on the other hand, construe queer historical work as cultural criticism and miss opportunities to engage with bold queer theorizing of historicity, transhistoricism, temporality, and change.Less
Recent queer history has begun to demonstrate that “queer” is very much a historical and historicized category. New work on the variations of sexuality has shown what a queer historical practice—as an epistemology and a methodology—might look like. However, progress in the development of queer historical practice belies the persistence of an “uncomfortable tension” between lesbian/gay history and queer studies. This chapter examines the results of the border crossings between academic history and queer studies in order to clarify what is at stake in determining how or if the history that outsiders produce differs from that of professionals. Some queer critics fashion a historical practice to suit their arguments and show little inclination to deepen their understanding of its range and diversity. Some trained historians, on the other hand, construe queer historical work as cultural criticism and miss opportunities to engage with bold queer theorizing of historicity, transhistoricism, temporality, and change.
Nick Davis
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199993161
- eISBN:
- 9780199346387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199993161.003.0000
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The introduction locates the book’s argument at the productive intersection of queer studies, film theory, and Deleuzian philosophy, clarifying where each field stood in the U.S. academy by the ...
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The introduction locates the book’s argument at the productive intersection of queer studies, film theory, and Deleuzian philosophy, clarifying where each field stood in the U.S. academy by the 1990s. From there, the introduction reviews seven theoretical tenets from which all of the book’s arguments derive, explaining such key Deleuzian concepts as desiring-production, deterritorialization, and minor cinema along the way and deriving concrete illustrations from different films than those treated in later chapters. Following some words about the origins, historical context, and disciplinary orientations of the book’s argument, the introduction ends with an overview of each subsequent chapter.Less
The introduction locates the book’s argument at the productive intersection of queer studies, film theory, and Deleuzian philosophy, clarifying where each field stood in the U.S. academy by the 1990s. From there, the introduction reviews seven theoretical tenets from which all of the book’s arguments derive, explaining such key Deleuzian concepts as desiring-production, deterritorialization, and minor cinema along the way and deriving concrete illustrations from different films than those treated in later chapters. Following some words about the origins, historical context, and disciplinary orientations of the book’s argument, the introduction ends with an overview of each subsequent chapter.
Tavia Nyong'o
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479856275
- eISBN:
- 9781479806386
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479856275.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gay and Lesbian Studies
This chapter enlists Gilles Deleuze’s theory of the “dark precursor”—the manner in which the past prefigures its future without determining or representing it—to give a different account of the role ...
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This chapter enlists Gilles Deleuze’s theory of the “dark precursor”—the manner in which the past prefigures its future without determining or representing it—to give a different account of the role antinormativity plays in the past, present, and future of queer theory. By reading Samuel R. Delany’s early fictions as a pos-thumanist problematization of norms of race, gender, sexuality, and species being, and by understanding the problematic split between “afrofuturism” and “queer theory” in the 1990s, we regain a sense of how central blackness has been to the genesis of queer theorizing.Less
This chapter enlists Gilles Deleuze’s theory of the “dark precursor”—the manner in which the past prefigures its future without determining or representing it—to give a different account of the role antinormativity plays in the past, present, and future of queer theory. By reading Samuel R. Delany’s early fictions as a pos-thumanist problematization of norms of race, gender, sexuality, and species being, and by understanding the problematic split between “afrofuturism” and “queer theory” in the 1990s, we regain a sense of how central blackness has been to the genesis of queer theorizing.
Ben Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781526132833
- eISBN:
- 9781526158338
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526132840.00004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This Introduction lays the theoretical groundwork for the book by exploring the place of 'sameness' in queer theory. As with related approaches that have a similar basis in post-structuralism and the ...
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This Introduction lays the theoretical groundwork for the book by exploring the place of 'sameness' in queer theory. As with related approaches that have a similar basis in post-structuralism and the politics of social difference, queer theoretical writing often poses values like heterogeneity, variety and change in opposition to a dominant order that is imagined as seeking sameness in the forms of homogeneity, conformity and assimilation, often taken to be intrinsically reactionary or pernicious. The Introduction traces how this opposition manifests through the development of key queer theoretical positions and also addresses the scattered history of engagement with sameness in queer thought. It argues that queer theory's theoretical and rhetorical orientation has prevented engagement with the significant investments in sameness that we can see in queer culture. Turning to coming out stories and the boredom they have inspired in queer readers, this Introduction also provides an initial case study for the connection between queer culture and forms of sameness that the later chapters continue to elucidate.Less
This Introduction lays the theoretical groundwork for the book by exploring the place of 'sameness' in queer theory. As with related approaches that have a similar basis in post-structuralism and the politics of social difference, queer theoretical writing often poses values like heterogeneity, variety and change in opposition to a dominant order that is imagined as seeking sameness in the forms of homogeneity, conformity and assimilation, often taken to be intrinsically reactionary or pernicious. The Introduction traces how this opposition manifests through the development of key queer theoretical positions and also addresses the scattered history of engagement with sameness in queer thought. It argues that queer theory's theoretical and rhetorical orientation has prevented engagement with the significant investments in sameness that we can see in queer culture. Turning to coming out stories and the boredom they have inspired in queer readers, this Introduction also provides an initial case study for the connection between queer culture and forms of sameness that the later chapters continue to elucidate.
Nicola J. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197530276
- eISBN:
- 9780197530306
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197530276.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics, Political Economy
This chapter outlines the scholarly debate and theoretical architecture that underpin the rest of the book. In recent years, queer theory has come under fire for being outdated, even redundant, on ...
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This chapter outlines the scholarly debate and theoretical architecture that underpin the rest of the book. In recent years, queer theory has come under fire for being outdated, even redundant, on the grounds that its interest in the fluidity of identity comes at the expense of political economic analysis. Contesting such claims, the chapter contends that queer theory is well suited to the study of global capitalism when pursued as a project that is both feminist and historical in approach. To this end, the author brings together the insights of Michel Foucault and Silvia Federici to develop a new framework for analyzing the intersections and contradictions between capitalism and sexuality. The chapter then explicates this framework through discussion of sex work as a particularly interesting and important site for applying the tools of queer political economy.Less
This chapter outlines the scholarly debate and theoretical architecture that underpin the rest of the book. In recent years, queer theory has come under fire for being outdated, even redundant, on the grounds that its interest in the fluidity of identity comes at the expense of political economic analysis. Contesting such claims, the chapter contends that queer theory is well suited to the study of global capitalism when pursued as a project that is both feminist and historical in approach. To this end, the author brings together the insights of Michel Foucault and Silvia Federici to develop a new framework for analyzing the intersections and contradictions between capitalism and sexuality. The chapter then explicates this framework through discussion of sex work as a particularly interesting and important site for applying the tools of queer political economy.
Nicole Seymour
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037627
- eISBN:
- 9780252094873
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037627.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This introductory chapter bridges the seeming theoretical disconnect between queer theory and ecocriticism. In doing so the chapter promotes a “queer ecology”—an emerging paradigm in which the ...
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This introductory chapter bridges the seeming theoretical disconnect between queer theory and ecocriticism. In doing so the chapter promotes a “queer ecology”—an emerging paradigm in which the ecological stances of the literary works treated in the following chapters are striking precisely because of the contexts from which they emerge—including postmodernism, poststructuralism, and the “post-identity” era—and precisely because they are so self-consciously queer. This chapter argues that these works manage to conceive of concrete, sincere environmental politics even while remaining, to varying degrees, skeptical, ironic, and self-reflexive. And they do so even while, as this chapter shows, queer fictions and theory are known for their cynicism, apoliticism, and negativity, such that “queer environmentalism” sounds like an oxymoron.Less
This introductory chapter bridges the seeming theoretical disconnect between queer theory and ecocriticism. In doing so the chapter promotes a “queer ecology”—an emerging paradigm in which the ecological stances of the literary works treated in the following chapters are striking precisely because of the contexts from which they emerge—including postmodernism, poststructuralism, and the “post-identity” era—and precisely because they are so self-consciously queer. This chapter argues that these works manage to conceive of concrete, sincere environmental politics even while remaining, to varying degrees, skeptical, ironic, and self-reflexive. And they do so even while, as this chapter shows, queer fictions and theory are known for their cynicism, apoliticism, and negativity, such that “queer environmentalism” sounds like an oxymoron.
Gary Needham
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748633821
- eISBN:
- 9780748651252
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633821.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Upon its release in 2005, Brokeback Mountain became a major cultural event and a milestone in independent American filmmaking. Based on the short story by Annie Proulx and directed by Ang Lee, it ...
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Upon its release in 2005, Brokeback Mountain became a major cultural event and a milestone in independent American filmmaking. Based on the short story by Annie Proulx and directed by Ang Lee, it situated a love story between two closeted cowboys at the heart of American mythology, film spectatorship, and genre. Brokeback Mountain offered an independent and queer revision of the conventions and clichés of the Western and the melodrama through a studied exploration of homophobia and the closet. This book examines the film in relation to indie cinema, genre, spectatorship, editing and homosexuality. In doing so it brings film studies and queer theory into dialogue with one another and explains the importance of Brokeback Mountain as both a contemporary independent and queer film. The book provides an overview of Focus Features as a hybrid company operating across both the mainstream and independent cinema sectors, and proposes a new way of thinking about gay spectatorship that takes into account how editing and cruising relate to one another.Less
Upon its release in 2005, Brokeback Mountain became a major cultural event and a milestone in independent American filmmaking. Based on the short story by Annie Proulx and directed by Ang Lee, it situated a love story between two closeted cowboys at the heart of American mythology, film spectatorship, and genre. Brokeback Mountain offered an independent and queer revision of the conventions and clichés of the Western and the melodrama through a studied exploration of homophobia and the closet. This book examines the film in relation to indie cinema, genre, spectatorship, editing and homosexuality. In doing so it brings film studies and queer theory into dialogue with one another and explains the importance of Brokeback Mountain as both a contemporary independent and queer film. The book provides an overview of Focus Features as a hybrid company operating across both the mainstream and independent cinema sectors, and proposes a new way of thinking about gay spectatorship that takes into account how editing and cruising relate to one another.
Anne Emmanuelle Berger
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823253852
- eISBN:
- 9780823260904
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823253852.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter offers theoretical and historical insights into the reasons why, and the ways in which gender theory has developed in the United States as a theory of performance, from John Money's ...
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This chapter offers theoretical and historical insights into the reasons why, and the ways in which gender theory has developed in the United States as a theory of performance, from John Money's earliest conception of gender as role playing to Judith Butler’s understanding of gender as a repeated “act”. The emphasis on the theatricality of gender in North-American theory helps explain why “drag” and “masquerade” occupy central theoretical stage, and why the figure of the drag queen has imposed itself as the icon of a gender theory constituted from the outset as queer, even before being recognized as such.Less
This chapter offers theoretical and historical insights into the reasons why, and the ways in which gender theory has developed in the United States as a theory of performance, from John Money's earliest conception of gender as role playing to Judith Butler’s understanding of gender as a repeated “act”. The emphasis on the theatricality of gender in North-American theory helps explain why “drag” and “masquerade” occupy central theoretical stage, and why the figure of the drag queen has imposed itself as the icon of a gender theory constituted from the outset as queer, even before being recognized as such.
Glyn Davis
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748637782
- eISBN:
- 9780748670864
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637782.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter investigates in detail the queerness of Far from Heaven. The film's queerness can be determined in four specific ways. Firstly, in its bringing to mainstream audiences an ‘independent’, ...
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This chapter investigates in detail the queerness of Far from Heaven. The film's queerness can be determined in four specific ways. Firstly, in its bringing to mainstream audiences an ‘independent’, ‘art-house’ or ‘underground’ attitude and approach to melodrama; secondly, in the supporting characters of Sybil (Viola Davis), Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson) and Mona (Celia Weston); thirdly, in its impact on contemporary audiences' understandings and readings of cinema history; and fourthly, in its relation to HIV/AIDS and public responses to the disease. Far from Heaven works as a work of retrospectatorship, or queer reading, on the films it directly quotes. In relation to HIV/AIDS, mourning took on a particular political valence for those affected by the disease. The subjects explored in this chapter provide models for how queer theory can open up Far from Heaven in ways that reveal its complexity, subtlety and significance.Less
This chapter investigates in detail the queerness of Far from Heaven. The film's queerness can be determined in four specific ways. Firstly, in its bringing to mainstream audiences an ‘independent’, ‘art-house’ or ‘underground’ attitude and approach to melodrama; secondly, in the supporting characters of Sybil (Viola Davis), Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson) and Mona (Celia Weston); thirdly, in its impact on contemporary audiences' understandings and readings of cinema history; and fourthly, in its relation to HIV/AIDS and public responses to the disease. Far from Heaven works as a work of retrospectatorship, or queer reading, on the films it directly quotes. In relation to HIV/AIDS, mourning took on a particular political valence for those affected by the disease. The subjects explored in this chapter provide models for how queer theory can open up Far from Heaven in ways that reveal its complexity, subtlety and significance.
Rachel Carroll
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474414661
- eISBN:
- 9781474453875
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474414661.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Drawing on the insights of leading scholars in the field of transgender studies, the Introduction provides extended consideration of critical and cultural frameworks essential for the project of ...
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Drawing on the insights of leading scholars in the field of transgender studies, the Introduction provides extended consideration of critical and cultural frameworks essential for the project of rereading representations of transgender in twentieth-century literary fiction, including: transgender historiography; feminism and queer theory; LGBT activism and identity politics. More specifically, it examines the following topics: questions of historical representation in relation to historical fiction; the influence of genres of transgender life writing, including memoir and biography; the legacies of Second Wave feminist critiques of transsexuals; the impact of narratives of gender crossing on the interpretation of transgender lives; the relationship between transsexual narratives and intersex bodies; the role of colonial contexts and discourses of ‘race’ in the construction of gender normativity. It concludes with an overview of the book structure, providing summaries of each chapter.Less
Drawing on the insights of leading scholars in the field of transgender studies, the Introduction provides extended consideration of critical and cultural frameworks essential for the project of rereading representations of transgender in twentieth-century literary fiction, including: transgender historiography; feminism and queer theory; LGBT activism and identity politics. More specifically, it examines the following topics: questions of historical representation in relation to historical fiction; the influence of genres of transgender life writing, including memoir and biography; the legacies of Second Wave feminist critiques of transsexuals; the impact of narratives of gender crossing on the interpretation of transgender lives; the relationship between transsexual narratives and intersex bodies; the role of colonial contexts and discourses of ‘race’ in the construction of gender normativity. It concludes with an overview of the book structure, providing summaries of each chapter.
