All rights reserved. Rubin uses the phrase sex-gender system to describe the process by which social relations produce women as oppressed beings. [16] Like Rubin, Fausto-Sterlings early provocation about sex categories sees sex as biological, natural, and unchangeable; it is raw material that culture transforms into gender. Is it the homo/heterosexual binary that Sedgwick engages in such depth in Axiomatic? Also known as Judith Halberstam, a gender and queer theorist and author, perhaps best known for work on tomboys and female masculinity. Lisa Duggan coined the term homonormativity to describe the activist work of groups like the HRC.[36]. "Universally cited as the text that ignited gay studies," according to Rolling Stone magazine, and as "in many ways the book that turned queer theory from a latent to a manifest discipline," the symposium features a series of short papers engaging with the text, its reception, and its relevance to the evolving field of queer studies. Halberstam (Shoemaker). InFemale Masculinity, Jack Halberstam continues the work of disentangling gender from genitals through a series of interpretive readings of literary, filmic, and historical representations (figure 1.6). His bookDisidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics(1999) uses performance studies to investigate the performance, activism, and survival of queer people of color. Her scholarship appears in the Journal of Homosexuality, the European Journal of American Studies, Fast Capitalism, and other journals and edited collections. 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. Queer Theory followed the emergence and popularity of Gay and Lesbian (now, LGBT or Queer) Studies in the academy. 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]. Queer: A Graphic History, by Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele. Sedgwick argues that by the twentieth century, in Western culture, every person was assigned a sexual identity. essentialist. Since the late 1980s, queer studies and theory have become vital to the intellectual and political life of the United States. Malik Gaines expands on Butlers theory of performativity by depicting how artists, musicians, playwrights, and actors perform race, Black political ideas, and resistance politics to disrupt mainstream views of race, gender, and sexuality. Her updated version of the classic My Gender Workbook (1997) is an accessible, humorous, and interactive introduction to contemporary gender theory, as well as the intersection of gender, sexuality, and power (New York: Routledge, 2013). Free shipping for many products! The influential transgender activist Riki Wilchins wrote this classic work to make queer theory and gender theory accessible to a nonacademic audience. Additionally, as of June 26, 2015, same-sex marriageis legal in the United States. In Gender Critical she addresses transphobic feminists (https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI). The book includes essays written by Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A hypothesis worth makingexplicit: that there are important senses in which "queer" can signify onlywhen attached to the first person. Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory and Postmodern Thought Resources. Do you think challenging homonormativity is important? [17] Fausto-Sterling has since conceded Kesslers point. Sedgwick argues that this reparative reading has been a strategy of queer and other marginalized groups for millennia. In this sweeping history of sexuality, Foucault creates an influential theory of sexual-identity formation. She asserts the political right of our nation has succeeded in lumping everything from Marxism to Queer Theory under the rubric of politically correct in a coup of cynical slovenliness unmatched since the artistic and academic purges of Germany and Russia in the thirties(18). Like Muoz, Carruthers emphasizes the importance of the Black imagination, specifically the ability to imagine alternative economics, alternative family structures, or something else entirely.[42] This work cannot be accomplished if groups like the HRC, which has a clear procapitalist agenda, shape public discourse about LGBTQ+ issues. Instead, queer theory and activism demand publicness, reject civility, and challenge the legitimacy, naturalness, and intrinsic value of institutionswhether marriage or the militarythat regulate gender and sexuality. The cultural anthropologist Esther Newton publishedMother Camp: Female Impersonators in America, a groundbreaking ethnography of drag culture in 1972. 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. Then, in 1987, Larry Kramer, Vito Russo, and others founded the direct-action group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) to demand that politicians, the medical community, drug manufacturers, and the public acknowledge the AIDS epidemic. Emerging in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1950s, the movement was a concerted effort to demand equal rights for homosexuals. Kirk Synthesis 3: The Power of Queer Imaginings, Synthesis 2 Queer Identities, Temporalities, and Geographies, Synthesis #1: Queer Hearts Resurrected: The Socially Corrupted Undead Bodies of In the Flesh, Synthesis #2: Reflections on The Polymath or The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman, Synthesis #3: Suppressing and Igniting Lesbian Desire in But Im a Cheerleader, Synthesis One: Shifting Paradigms in Foucaults History of Sexuality Volumes One and Two, Synthesis Three: Queer Imaginings in Melvilles Moby Dick, Synthesis Two: Queer Studies in a Transnational Context, Re-centering Race in My Beautiful Launderette, Synthesis 3: Meditation: Prodesse quam conspici, The Booty Dont Lie: Radical Coalitions between Queer Women of Color and the Straight Women Who Love Them, Cinema Diaspora: Discussant Mira Nair with Gayatri Gopinath Chairing. 2) How does each of us vocalize the word queer in conversations with others? From a historiographical perspective, Sedgwicks piece is seminal and inspiring. This chapter maps the emergence of queer theory, over time and across disciplines, out of the lived experiences of diverse LGBTQ+ people. For him, experiencing performance allows audiences to rehearse new ways of seeing and being in the world together, which is why he emphasizes the importance of art and music. Transgender studies is an interdisciplinary field of knowledge production that, like queer theory, challenges discursive and institutional regimes of normativity. It accepts greater economic inequality and disfavors unionization. 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? When Sedgwick arrived at Cornell in 1967, she had yet to make her mark on the literary world. She was 58. However, whereas queer theory is sometimes guilty of the privileging of homosexual ways of differing from heterosexual norms, transgender studies challenges naturalized links between the material body, psychic structures, and gendered social roles. 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). This essay examines the Foucauldian foundations of queer theory in the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Jos Esteban Muozs hope-affirming work claims the future for queers (figure 1.7). It does, however, have at its founding, and through the twists and turns of its development, an investment in radical social change tethered to a belief that, because gender, sexual, and other forms of social hierarchy are reproduced and regulated through discourse and social institutions, those institutions can and must be changed for the better. discourses. 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). An institutionalized way of thinking and speaking, which creates a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic. Icon Books is licensed under a, Figure 1.3. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol wowed President Joe Biden and the crowd at a White House state dinner on Wednesday night by breaking out into song. Most often someone who identifies as a man who behaves in an exaggerated performance of femininity. In the late 1990s, several critics took the opportunity to reflect on the relations between feminism, lesbian studies and queer theory. Additionally, these ideas, and the value hierarchies that adhere to them, are maintained only by their reproduction. Visit the website of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC; https://www.hrc.org/), and explore. In this Lambda Literary Award finalist and Modern Language Associations Crompton-Noll Award winner for best essay in gay and lesbian studies, Stockton analyzes the embracing of shame among Black and queer people and the role of shame in fostering attraction, the arts, storytelling and recording of history, and camp (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006). Sedgwick, Eve. Fausto-Sterling introduces the terms herms, ferms, and merms to categorize anatomical, hormonal, and chromosomal differences that fall outside a male-female sex dyad. 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 is one of the smartest and wittiest critics writing. [12] For Sedgwick, the history of homosexuality is not a minority historyit is the history of modern Western culture. Many express criticism that groups like the HRC have become representative voices of the LGBTQ+ community and are failing to represent its most vulnerable members. Emerging in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1950s, the movement was a concerted effort to demand equal rights for homosexuals. Work like this and work published by other trans scholars demonstrates the importance of thinking gender and sexuality queerly. Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices. First published in 1985, Between Men was a decisive intervention in gender studies, a book that all but singlehandedly dislodged a tradition of literary critique that suppressed queer subjects and subjectivities. Importantly, Chambers-Letson does not see art and performance as able to fulfill the promise of revolutionary transformative change; instead, it is a site where possible worlds are imagined, but they must still be materially enacted.[44]. 57 likes, 2 comments - Adam's Nest (@adamsnest) on Instagram: "Flashback Friday to Independence Week 2022 with Matt and Nick in their Provincetown sweatshirts f." The sense of a historical moment is strong in the essay, as its title underscores. The groups motto was, and remains, Silence = Death.[1] An offshoot of ACT UP, Queer Nation, was founded in 1990 to fight the escalating violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. At roughly the same time, the term queer theory began to circulate and quickly gained momentum within academic circles. According to Foucault, power is everywhere, although it is not evenly dispersed. Her work aims to create young leaders in marginalized communities to fight for community interests and liberation. [9] Halperin argues that using modern identity frameworks to understand culturally and historically specific expressions of desire is poor scholarship. Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most influential texts in gender studies, men's studies and gay studies," this book uncovers the homosocial desire between men, from Restoration comedies to Tennyson's Princess. drag. What are the key events that Ford identifies as defining the broad outlines of the history of the word. Free shipping for many products! Taught by Alexis Lothian, For Foucault, power does not repress a preexisting sexual identity; it provides the conditions needed for sexual identities to multiply. Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class, and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics, by Urvashi Vaid. (Warmington), Whats Queer About Queer Studies Now? (Warmington), Halley and Parker: After Sex? He identifies major contributors to a canon of works that built up the theory. A term introduced by Eve Sedgwick to describe viewing sexuality and sexual definition as important to everyone, rather than focusing on homosexuals as a distinct group. Winner of the Gustavus Myers Center / Study of Human Rights Outstanding Book Award, this book provides the first scholarly study of trans people. It may not be redistributed or altered. The 1970s and 1980s saw a rapid increase in lesbian and gay activism and scholarship. A pioneer in queer theory and literary studies, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick brings together for the first time in Touching Feeling her most powerful explorations of . 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. John DEmilio, another queer historian, connects the development of modern gay identity to nineteenth-century urbanization and industrialization. His essay is included in Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader, edited by M. Hames-Garca and E. J. Martnez (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 1945, which won the 2011 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Anthology. 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. Queer Theory Musings: Let's Talk About Sex, Baby! 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 . Queer and Now serves as an introduction to the essay collection Tendencies, in which Butler revisits many of the themes in more detail, which might be why you find its structure a little frustrating though that may also just be Sedgwicks style! Full video transcript available in the appendix. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Where identity should be abandoned to maintain the myth of universality. A Black queer feminist activist and organizer. A term introduced by Eve Sedgwick to describe viewing sexuality and sexual definition as important to everyone, rather than focusing on homosexuals as a distinct group. Whereas LGBT Studies seeks to analyze LGBT people as stable Websites: Queer Frontiers [At USC] An important "Queer Theory" site. In exchange, it prohibited the discrimination of closeted service persons. The activistCharlene A. Carrutherss Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements foregrounds the importance of intersectional thinking. In a video in the InQueery series by them, Tyler Ford explains the history behind the word queer (https://youtu.be/UpE0u9Dx_24). (LogOut/ The capacity of language and expressive actions to produce a type of being. Just like his character in "Footloose," Kevin Bacon is taking a stand against a ban through dance. [21] Importantly, for Butler, because gender must be constantly reperformed, it can be intentionally or unintentionally troubled, revealing it as an ongoing project with no origin. Clearly a social constructionist, Butler emphasizes that she considers gender an important site of freedom and pleasure. Icon Books is licensed under a, Figure 1.4 Icon Books is licensed under a, Figure 1.5. Your email address will not be published. Queer Theory and the Jewish Question, edited by Daniel Boyarin, Daniel Itzkovitz, and Ann Pellegrini. 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. Who are some of the key thinkers and activists who have contributed to these movements? I am curious to know what you understand the dominant cultural conception of what it means to be queer to be. Bacon expounded on the topic in the caption, urging his fans to support the ACLU's Drag Defense Fund going after anti-drag bills being passed throughout the U.S. "Drag bans are bad karma. https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/app/uploads/sites/262/2022/03/Judith-Butler_-Your-Behavior-Creates-Your-Gender-Big-Think.mp4, https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2018/11/20/iconic-kate-bornstein-explains-gender-revolution, https://afropunk.com/2013/03/growing-up-queer-a-brief-lesson-on-hetero-and-homonormativity/, https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/app/uploads/sites/262/2022/03/Charlene-Carruthers-on-Black-Liberation-for-all-Black-People360p.mp4, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNvsIonJdJ5E4EXMa65VYpA, https://www.youtube.com/user/MyGenderation/videos, https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/lgbtq/graduate-student-resources/queer-theory-reading-list, http://newsocialist.org/old_mag/magazine/39/article04.html, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8980528_The_Normalization_of_Queer_Theory, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Newton uses the term drag queen to describe a homosexual male who often, or habitually, dresses in female attire.[19] Newton separated the sexed body from the gender expressed on it, suggesting that there is no natural link between the two, as discussed in the previous section, but in 1972 the link between sex and gender remained tightly clamped. Fausto-Sterlings work was soon challenged for focusing too much attention on genitals. Overlapping or intersecting social identities, such as race, class, and gender, that are produced by social structures of inequality. From its earliest iterations, queer theory challenged norms that reproduced inequalities and, at its best, sought to understand how sexuality intersected with gender, race, class, and other social identities to maintain social hierarchies. Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left: A History of the Impossible, by Malik Gaines. [35] For instance,Dont Ask, Dont Tell, a policy of forced silence about sexuality for gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members instituted by the Bill Clinton administration in 1993, was repealed in 2011. Their scholarship gestures toward what a queerly transformed world might look like. Although this interpretationis certainly supported by the text, I wonder if it really captures the nuance of what Sedgwick is trying to do. Dont Ask, Dont Tell. With stunning foresight and conceptual power, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's work opened not only literature but also politics, society, and culture to broader investigations of power, sex . What are some examples of what Bornstein calls the multiplicity of gender truths discussed in this chapter so far? Explain the social construction of sex, gender, and sexuality. Job discrimination, housing discrimination, street harassment, and access to identification documents are central to the politics of queers of color as well as women and lower-income members of the LGBTQ+ community. An American professor, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality, and a founder of Transgender Studies. Queer theorists like Duggan and Puar are critical of assimilationist politics, but neither offers tangible suggestions for what a socially just and queer-inclusive world might look like. It then attaches sexual backwardness and violent homophobia to Islamic nations. Sedgwick's optimism was far from nave; the same introduction disclosed her diagnosis of breast cancer, which. Her purpose, moreover, in composing this article is to fight against the homogenizing effects of political correctness upon art and literature, which has threatened to ameliorate and obviate the multivalenced meaning of queerness. Why? For instance, the cultural anthropologist Gayle Rubins essay The Traffic in Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex sought to identify the origin of womens oppression across cultures. Queer Theory Reading List, from Brown University. A Case Study of Provincetown (Warmington), T S Redmonds Summary of Mel Y. Chens Toxic Animacies, Allen Synthesis One: Performance and Identity. Did Foucault want us to become nostalgic, or did he want us to learn from the past about better ways of doing things now? The scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behaviors, and functions. Upon completion of this chapter, students will be able to do the following: It is a challenge to create an origin story about a field of study, in this instance queer theory, because ideas are not birthed in a moment, a day, or even a year. In other words, heterosexuality secured its non-homosexual status precisely by rejecting occasions for desire, relation, or attachment to take hold. A video from the School of Life series discusses Michel Foucault, a philosopher of history who explored different institutionsmedicine, crime and punishment, and homosexualitywith the goal of radically disrupting our understanding of them (https://youtu.be/BBJTeNTZtGU). Gender Trouble was critiqued for ignoring the materiality of the body and real sex differences. neoliberalism. What are the differences between essentialist and constructionist theories of identity? 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.

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