The capacity of language and expressive actions to produce a type of being. Roderick A. Ferguson analyzes how sociologists articulate theories of racial difference by using theories of sexuality. Please check your email address / username and password and try again. In other words, what becomes tied to heteronormativity is not femininity but masculinity, and homophobic dynamics are doubled by patriarchal relations of power. The U.S. militarys policy on gays, bisexuals, and lesbians serving in the military, introduced in 1994 by Bill Clintons administration. Human Rights Campaign. Queer theory and queer activism are products of their historical moment as well as transformative forces changing how gender and sexuality are understood in multiple academic disciplines and, increasingly, outside academia. His project explores the ways minoritarian subjects mobilize performance to survive the present, improvise new worlds, and sustain new ways of being in the world.[43]. And if youre afraid that going PC is going to bring some kind of doctrine to you or warp what you believe in, youre already stuck in a position of not realizing how queeryou and everything else has always-alreadybeen. The book includes essays written by Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Has someone you know had their gender presentation challenged or censored? (LogOut/ Nguyen challenges the concept of bottom as passive and shameful, transforming it into a sexual position, a social alliance, a romantic bond, and an art form. Some would argue that lesbian and gay studies took an essentialist view of sexuality that assumed individuals possessed a fixed and innate sexual identity that was both universal and transhistorical.[7]. In exchange, it prohibited the discrimination of closeted service persons. Susan Strykerprovides an even more specific periodization, finding that the term transgender emerged in the 1980s but didnt take on its current meaning until 1992 when Leslie Feinberg publishedTransgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come. By refusing to accept that there is a right way to be transgender and encouraging coalition building under the newly flexible term transgender, Feinberg hoped transgender persons could build a transformative activism-oriented community. She introduces a Black queer feminist lens, which she describes as a lens through which people and groups see to bring their full selves into the process of dismantling all systems of oppression.[40] Whereas libertarian, conservative, and even liberal lesbian and gay groups seek to diminish the importance of sexual (and other) differences, Carruthers suggests that bringing a Black queer feminist lens to political thought and praxis renounces the middle-class notion of the public sphere as a place where identity should be abandoned to maintain the myth of universality. Where identity should be abandoned to maintain the myth of universality. This can be seen in the early homophile movement, which refers to late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century homosexual rights activism that emerged in tandem and entwined with sexology and anti-sodomy laws. For Sedgwick, unlike Gothic literature that depicted the male hero as tenacious to the point of martyrdom, Victorian literature depicted the male hero as isolated, aloof, and defined by lack of desire. Rubin uses the phrase sex-gender system to describe the process by which social relations produce women as oppressed beings. On Writing Since Queer Theory, the reader is confronted, not only with a summary of their project, but also with a rather profound elucidation of the competing, disparate voices that claim to speak for and about the movement. Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2012). The group was founded by veterans from ACT UP, and the groups activism enacted and enabled queer theory. How does your history with the word relate to the broader history described by Ford in the video? Halberstam convincingly claims, Masculinity must not and cannot and should not reduce down to the male body and its effects.[25] Like many queer theorists engaging gender, Halberstam deemphasizes genitals, refocusing on gender expressions. Sedgwick says that study of sex and gender are not parallel, sex is chromosomal and gender is constructed. Its a pretty amazing mission statement one that accounts for the individuality and personal history of active resistance and struggle, one that is less invested in sayingwe need to do this because X, but more like we owe it to ourselves to give ourselves and others the choices we always knew where there but seemed out of reach somewhow, we need to make our stories and selves known and heard, we need to refuse being repressed and silenced, we need to do what we can to assert ourselves and fight those powers that would have us destroyed or erased. Lesbian and gay studies courses began to appear in the 1970s, and programs slowly emerged in the 1980s. Epistemology of the Closet - Bailey - Wiley Online Library The short introduction in theQueer Studies Readerstates that Sedgwicks purpose in the piece is toargue against the monolithic understandings of sexuality that presume sexual identity as a static identity category (3). Gender always reveals the preference to heterosexual because the social institution makes gendershow more content The view of sexuality that assumes individuals possess a fixed and innate sexual identity that is both universal and transhistorical. Academics and activists use the term to discuss attempts by LGBTQ+ persons to assimilate into institutions like marriage and the military that reproduce hierarchy and are associated with oppression. The struggle for queer liberation, not limited to marriage equality, is a fight that the majority population would not fight for us and with us. [18] Most queer theoretical engagements with gender deprivilege the body, particularly genitals, as a site of truth by suggesting that the appearance of binary sexed bodies is actually an effect of binary gender discourse and, as discussed in the next section, binary performances of gender. The Deaths of the Author: Reading and Writing in Time by Gallop - eBay In other words, a binary sex-gender system that assumes a correlation between sex and gender is an effect of power, not nature. "Queer and Now." 'Queer Theory' Is Entering The Literary Mainstream Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity on JSTOR Tongson Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries Summary/Susan Petrole, The Combahee River Collective Statement Summary (Powers), TS Redmonds Summary of Audre Lordes Zami, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (Susan Petrole), Lorde Summary- Uses of the Erotic (Hummel), Alexander Pedagogies of Crossing (Shoemaker), Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Culture (Warmington), Green, Pink, and Lavender Gaard (Shoemaker), Cape Queer? Tan Hoang Nguyen reassesses male effeminacy and how it is racialized in cinema, art, and pornography. Describe the relationship among LGBTQ+ history, political activism, and LGBTQ+ studies. The view that identity is a sociocultural construct that influences identity formation. Queer and Now | Tendencies | Books Gateway | Duke University Press De Lauretis suggested gay and lesbian sexualities should be studied, not as deviations of heterosexuality, but on their own terms. In After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life, Joshua Chambers-Letson explores the affect music and art can have on audiences in an attempt to theorize the conditions necessary to envision collective change. David Halperin, a historian of classical Greek culture, provided volumes worth of historical evidence to support Foucaults more theoretical claims. The text is a progression of the analysis in Sedgwicks previous work on homosocial relationships, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. Robert McRuer is one of the founders of queer disability studies and a major contributor to the fields of transnational queer theory and disability theory. If thats Sedgwicks underlyinggoal then we see how it evolves and bolsters her teaching, her projects, her understanding of her own health and the survival of others around her. At the end of the 14 . homophile movement. This living list of queer scholarship includes many important intersectional texts (https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/lgbtq/graduate-student-resources/queer-theory-reading-list). Here it is important to distinguish between sexual identities and sexual practices. Icon Books is licensed under a, Figure 1.2. It is a much newer theory, in that it was established in the 1990s, and contests many of the set ideas of the more established fields it comes from by challenging the notion of . A phrase coined by Gayle Rubin to describe the social apparatus that oppresses women. Free shipping for many products! Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability, by Robert McRuer. Sedgwick: "Queer and Now" (Powers) | Sexuality, Race and Space: Queer Urvashi Vaid is a frequently cited attorney and leader of LGBTQ+ social justice movements. Other queer theorists, particularly queer of color theorists, are doing the important work of imagining politics and society radically differently. Emerging in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1950s, the movement was a concerted effort to demand equal rights for homosexuals. The editors are scholars and authors of Jewish studies, queer theory, and religious studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images. The universalizing view, in contrast, sees sexuality and sexual definition as important to everyone. However, queer activism and scholarship reject mainstream liberal ideals of privacy, the goal of formal equality under the law, and the desirability of assimilation into existing social institutions. Queerness is a structuring and educated mode of desiring that allows us to see and feel beyond the quagmire of the present.[38] For Muoz, conditions of everyday life are simply not viable for queer people of color, which prompts many to imagine a transformed world. However, naming the homosexual had unforeseen consequences. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was an American academician specializing in literary criticism and feminist analysis; she is known as one of the architects of queer theory. She is an independent scholar and high school teacher. Restate, in your own words, what Kate Bornstein means when she talks about gender in four dimensions. What do we mean when we talk about gender performativity and the implications of the constructionist turn? Additionally, as of June 26, 2015, same-sex marriageis legal in the United States. [17] Fausto-Sterling has since conceded Kesslers point. In this book he coins crip theory to describe the intersection of disability, gender, and sexuality and an interdisciplinary approach to critical disability theory, which encompasses queer theory. Her many publications include A Dialogue On Love (Beacon, 1999); Fat Art/Thin Art (Duke, 1994); Tendencies (Duke, 1993); and Epistemology of the Closet (California, 1990). Social constructionism also influenced understandings of gender. For example, she says, You cannot talk about racial justice without talking about economic justice. Describe and define more fully Carrutherss intersectional analysis, and be sure to cite specific statements she makes in the video as evidence. Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer, by Riki Wilchins. Clearly a social constructionist, Butler emphasizes that she considers gender an important site of freedom and pleasure. The word politics and its many variations have come to signify dishonesty and ruthless self-interest within our culture, immediately evoking a sense of distrust in many Americans. The Normalization of Queer Theory, by David Halperin. She was 58. In the article, Allen states that one purpose of this post is to create a conversation about the complexities of the contradictions many peoples identities present to preconceived societal ideas. Have you ever felt that your identity challenged accepted social norms? I am curious to know what you understand the dominant cultural conception of what it means to be queer to be. Jennifer Miller earned a PhD in cultural studies from George Mason University and an MA in literary and cultural studies from Carnegie Mellon University. It is the name that can be given to a historical construct.[8] By rejecting the idea that something called sexuality exists in all of us, waiting to be liberated, Foucaults work challenged not only how sexuality was understood in popular and scholarly discourses but also how power was understood. Sedgwick: "Queer and Now" (Powers) Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's article, "Queer and Now," collected in her book Tendencies (Routledge 1994), challenges the dominant cultural conception of what it means to be queer, i.e., not part of a binaried heteronormative coupling in early 1990s America. References Part V: Relationships, Families, and Youth, Introduction to LGBTQ+ Studies: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Vintage KANSAS Coliseum Sedgwick County Brass Buckle Limited Edition 1978 at the best online prices at eBay! The policy required gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons to remain closeted while in the military. She applies queer theory to her activism and advocacy, pursuing the notion that LGBTQ+ equality will be achieved once heteronormativity and homonormativity within the institutions of family, society, and government are interrupted, disrupted, and decentered to become more inclusive of racial, gender, and economic diversity (New York: Magnus Books, 2012). Allen Synthesis Three: Where and What is Home? It works for legal protections for LGBTQ+ persons, such as promoting legislation to prevent discrimination and hate crimes. intersex.
