A term introduced by Eve Sedgwick to describe the view of homosexuality as relevant only to homosexuals. They build on what has come before, reflect on it, challenge it, seek to bend or break it, and only eventually, and only sometimes, become an identifiable entity with a name given to them. 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. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Could not validate captcha. Review of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (1990) [At Gay Book Reviews] One of the most influential books on queer theory. An academic in the fields of performance studies, visual culture, queer theory, cultural studies, and critical theory. For Butler, there is no natural and essential gender or sexuality that queers deviate from. To assert that identities are sociocultural constructs assumes that in different times and places different meanings and values dominate and influence identity. 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 Normalization of Queer Theory, by David Halperin. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. (LogOut/ The minoritizing view sees homosexuality as relevant only to homosexuals. 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. It is an ambitious essaydivided into short sections that cover topics rangingfrom high suicide rates amonggay, lesbian, and queer adolescents; the relationship between rhetoric supporting the concealment and/or extinction of gay or queer identifying individuals and the policies of institutions and social systems; the threats directed at queer lives (esp. In Chapter 5, Sedgwick orients the reader toward the other side of the spectrum and focuses her reading of Prousts work on the two queer characters in the novel In Search of Lost Time. Judith Butler describes the social construction of gender, and the policing of gender, by social institutions in this video in the Big Think series. The book includes essays written by Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. 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. In Queer and Now Sedgwick manages to accomplish something none of the philosophers we have studied thus far have rigorously attempted. 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. 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. By David L. Eng, Judith Halberstam and Jose Esteban Munoz, WHATS QUEER ABOUT QUEER STUDIES NOW? Figure 1.1. Jennifer Miller earned a PhD in cultural studies from George Mason University and an MA in literary and cultural studies from Carnegie Mellon University. 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. 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. Sedgwicks deconstructivist approach shows us that any social binary that defines subjects in society (especially the binary of heterosexual/homosexual) is not a relation of symmetry between two terms. This book won the Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize presented by the Gay Lesbian Queer Caucus of the Modern Language Association and was finalist for the 2015 Lambda Literary Foundation LGBT Studies Award. Like Rubin, Newton was writing before the 1990 birth of queer theory. Rodrguez deconstructs the archetype of the gesturing emotional Latina femme to discuss how gestures and types of bodies inform sexual pleasures and practices, as well as racialized sexual and gender identities (New York: New York University Press, 2014). Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices. 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. It may not be redistributed or altered. Both activism and theory are historically and geographically contingent, tethered to time, space, and the material body in its specificity. Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer, by Riki Wilchins. constructionist. 576 ratings35 reviews. Published only a few years after Duggans work on homonormativity and neoliberalism, Jasbir PuarsTerrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times confirms that some queer subjects have been incorporated into U.S. national life as valued citizens. I am curious to know what you understand the dominant cultural conception of what it means to be queer to be. In a follow-up publication, Butler argues that sex is a regulatory ideal that forces many bodies into a two-part system. I have deliberately chosen to identify the ironic spectator as gay rather than queer, based on Butler's (1993) theorization of critical queerness. Although this interpretationis certainly supported by the text, I wonder if it really captures the nuance of what Sedgwick is trying to do. A strategy or one who enacts such strategy to gain access to, or assimilate into, existing social structures, like monogamous marriage or serving in the U.S. military. 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. As a result, meanings and values change across space and time. Whereas LGBT Studies seeks to analyze LGBT people as stable A political ideology that espouses economic liberalism, such as trade liberalization and financial deregulation, and small government. This legal case reveals the double-bind structure of homosexual life: If one remained in the closet there was a danger of being found out, but coming out of the closet resulted in exposure to oppression. Similar to Muoz and Carruthers, he argues that radical transformation is the only way forward for queers of color. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (Foreword), Nancy K. Miller (Editor), Carolyn G. Heilbrun (Editor) 4.09. 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. Jos Esteban Muozs hope-affirming work claims the future for queers (figure 1.7). With marked tenderness, the contributors to Reading . This site uses cookies. In the first years of the 2000s, groups like the Human Rights Campaign(HRC), which takes a formal rights approach to securing legal protections for LGBTQ+ persons, experienced many successes. Yes, Dr. Lothian, thats how Im defining the term as I come to understand it! What was Foucaults personal background, and how do you imagine it might have influenced his academic career? Halberstam (Shoemaker). Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (New York: Soft Skull Press, 2004) and Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? sexology. Taught by Alexis Lothian, Judith Halberstam, Whats That Smell? It begins by elaborating on distinctions between gay and lesbian studies and queer studies before identifying important trends in queer theory. Gender is definitionally built into homosexuality, but sexuality represents beyond gender and reproduction. Jack Halberstam. Another example is Kate Bornstein, whose 1995 publication,Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us, humorously and accessibly describes her experiences with gender and sexuality. 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. Icon Books is licensed under a, Figure 1.7. Sedgwick argued that an understanding of virtually any aspect of modern Western culture would be incomplete or damaged if it failed to incorporate a critical analysis of modern homo/heterosexual definition, coining the terms "antihomophobic" and "homosocial.". In fact, de Lauretis used the term queer to create critical distance from lesbian and gay studies. Dont Ask, Dont Tell. This can have its usesfor instance, in creating a discernible community able to make demands of the state, as seen in the homophile movement as well as in current gay (and lesbian) rights activism. (T. Kirk), Kranidis-The Relevance of Race for Study of Sexuality, In a Queer Time and Place/Brandon Archive (Warmington), T. Kirk Whats That Smell? Print. Additionally, when she proceeds to list the elements that supposedly compose ones sexual identity circa 1991 (7), she deftly points out that this groupings attempts at unifying the differences inherent in different peoples sexual identities into a seamless and univocal whole (8) is an impossible task, but hope exists in the fact that the idea of queer opens up a world of endless possibilities and contradictions for defining and understanding ones self. 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. 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. The key insight from this chapter is that the way in which Prousts narrator describes Charlus and Albertine as different in every relevant way except one: regardless of the suspicion surrounding Charluss true sex and Albertines sexuality, both figures are cast as inhabiting a feminine position relative to the world of the text as a whole. Summary. Queer critics of the HRC maintain that the organization has a limited vision of human rights, is procapitalist, and supports bills that fail to include transgender personsfor example, the proposed 2007 Employment Non-discrimination Act. The largest U.S.-based LGBTQ+ advocacy group. 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). This does important political and intellectual work in troubling the idea of heterosexuality as normal and natural, a claim that has been used to marginalize homosexuals. A Black queer feminist activist and organizer. However, the aspect of this assertion I find truly alarming is the hint Sedgwick provides that this covertly hateful discourse is ingrained within and acting upon the universities of our nation, institutions which are supposed to serve as safe havens for all ideas with academic merit regardless of their political capital. I also am intrigued by her challenging us to articulate our position toward the word queer in relationship to how we apply the term in the first (9) or second or third-person (11). Abstract Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's concept, the epistemology of the closet, is a foundational contribution to the field of queer theory. intersex. What evidence does each perspective use to support its argument? ContraPoints is an irreverent video essayist who explores gender identity and queer theory while using her extensive background in academic philosophy. [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. 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. This chapter maps the emergence of queer theory, over time and across disciplines, out of the lived experiences of diverse LGBTQ+ people. Sedgwick argues that it is a crisis "indicatively male, dating . A term introduced by Eve Sedgwick to describe the view of homosexuality as relevant only to homosexuals. Susan Stryker. Allen Synthesis Three: Where and What is Home? Overlapping or intersecting social identities, such as race, class, and gender, that are produced by social structures of inequality. "Queer" seems to hinge much more radically andexplicitly on a person's undertaking particular, performative acts ofexperimental self-perception and filiation. Designating theoretical perspectives which contradict their own beliefs under this terminology is brilliant to say the least. "Queer and Now", Tendencies, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Refers to the performance of femininity or masculinity, and is most frequently used to describe the performance of gender expressions that differ from those associated with the performers natal sex assignment. The conference proceedings were later collected in a 1991 special issue ofDifferences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. Sedgwick argues that by the twentieth century, in Western culture, every person was assigned a sexual identity. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability, by Robert McRuer. The 1970s and 1980s saw a rapid increase in lesbian and gay activism and scholarship. Carruthers states that unless we move the margins into the center, none of us will be free. What does she mean by that statement? Additionally, like Carruthers, Chambers-Letson decenters the queer sexual subject and queer theory to explore intersectional possibilities for speculative world making and practical activism. The types of advocacy discussed in this article have, I contend, marginalized critical queerness in favour of a normative, discursively limited framework of 'gay' or 'LGBT' rights. 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. Gender Trouble was critiqued for ignoring the materiality of the body and real sex differences. Charlene A. Carruthers. Emerging in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1950s, the movement was a concerted effort to demand equal rights for homosexuals. Queer Theory critically examines the way power works to institutionalize and legitimate certain forms and expressions of sexuality and gender while stigmatizing others. Alongside this phenomenon, Sedgwick also provides the methodology that informs her study: deconstruction. [10] Jonathan Ned Katz, also a historian, focuses a critically queer lens on heterosexuality, arguing that it is also a social construct. 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. From a historiographical perspective, Sedgwicks piece is seminal and inspiring. [11] By demonstrating that heterosexuality, like homosexuality, is a modern invention, Katz seeks to strip the category of its normalizing power. This is the position Sedgwick takes in her book when she claims that sexual definition is central to social organization and identity formation. She is an independent scholar and high school teacher. On the contrary, societal binaries are two terms constituted by a relation of asymmetry such that one term presides and subordinates the other. drag. Sedgwick ends her introduction on the note that , It is possible, and quite likely, that this portion of this article hit home for me because I am currently reading Homers. Queer theory, which Ms. Sedgwick developed along with Judith Butler, a professor at the University of California, Berkley, is a prism through which scholars examine literary texts. Judith ButlersGender Trouble, originally published in 1990, introduces the term performativity to suggest that gender identity is not natural and does not emanate from an essential truth that can be located on or in the body (figure 1.5). 2) How does each of us vocalize the word queer in conversations with others? 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. The film theorist Teresa de Lauretis (figure 1.1) coined the term at a University of California, Santa Cruz, conference about lesbian and gay sexualities in February 1990. Meg-John Barker, an academic and activist, teamed up with the cartoonist Jules Scheele in this nonfiction graphic novel to illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action (London: Icon Books, 2016). He writes, The future is queernesss domain. Free shipping for many products! Sedgwick's "Queer and Now": Queer Theory at its Mo More circles, More anxiety: An Exploration of Mich What is woman? Lisa Duggan coined the term homonormativity to describe the activist work of groups like the HRC.[36]. This 2005 article in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (volume 31, number 1; https://doi.org/10.1086/432743) covers the history of queer theory and gives an overview of its origins. Faculty web page Such a story is relevant for Sedgwicks investigations precisely because the stereotype of opacity and secrecy in homosexual identity and desire is heighted by Claggarts status as a policeman and by the background events of recent mutinies on other ships. Since the late 1980s, queer studies and theory have become vital to the intellectual and political life of the United States. In the mid-1970s, the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault publishedThe History of Sexuality, which describes the origin of modern homosexual identity. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. Office: Leonard 209B. In the second chapter, Sedgwick turns to the figure of Claggart, a gay policeman on a ship in Melvilles Billy Budd. A phrase coined by Gayle Rubin to describe the social apparatus that oppresses women. Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class, and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics, by Urvashi Vaid. Has someone you know had their gender presentation challenged or censored? Explain the social construction of sex, gender, and sexuality. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. [4] In addition to sexuality, de Lauretis hoped queer theory would identify and trouble other constructed silencesfor instance, those of race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Labeling courses of study under the heading politically correct is an easy way to generate or amplify the distrust, suspicion, or ignorance many American have for these already marginalized viewpoints. You do not currently have access to this chapter. Sedgwick opens with some hard statistics on suicide rates, HIV/AIDS policy, homelessness rates, etc., that suggest that the world is hostile to queer people and concludes: "Seemingly, this society wants its children to know nothing; wants its queer children to conform or (and [12] For Sedgwick, the history of homosexuality is not a minority historyit is the history of modern Western culture. The view that identity is a sociocultural construct that influences identity formation. Why or why not? She went on to claim gay and lesbian sexualities should be understood and imagined as forms of resistance to cultural homogenization, counteracting dominant discourses.[3] According to de Lauretis, and queer theorists more generally, lesbian and gay sexualities enact nonnormative intimate and social modes of relating; they put new things in the world, and those new things have transformative potential. Epistemology of the Closet, published in 1990 in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, is a seminal work of queer studies by intellectual and activist Eve Sedgwick. Restate, in your own words, what Kate Bornstein means when she talks about gender in four dimensions. Most often someone who identifies as a man who behaves in an exaggerated performance of femininity. An institutionalized way of thinking and speaking, which creates a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic. According to Rubin, One begins to have a sense of a systematic social apparatus which takes up females as raw material and fashions domesticated women as products.[14] Rubin writes, As a preliminary definition, a sex-gender system is the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied.[15]. Queer theory as an academic tool came about in part from gender and sexuality studies that in turn had their origins from lesbians and gay studies and feminist theory. Is there a place for organizations like the HRC in queer politics? (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. Do you see progress or instead a lack of spontaneity and imagination in the way the West has treated people with mental health issues, criminals, and homosexuals? 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. 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). If so, describe how, and if not, explain why that might be the case. Introduction 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. Allen Synthesis Two: Thoughts on Place, Space, and Change, Birth in the Closet-Synthesis #3 (Hummel), Hummel Synthesis #2:Re-vising the Suburbs: A Tale of Whoa, Synthesis #1: Freakin at the Freakers Ball: Halloween in the Castro, a Love Story, #3 Henry David Hwangs Queer Diaspora in M. Butterfly. What hopes do you have for the future of gender? 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. Furthermore, they argue that capitalism and militarism do harm and can only contingently benefit individual LGBTQ+ persons. For Foucault, Sexuality must not be thought of as a kind of natural given which power tries to hold in check, or as an obscure domain which knowledge tries gradually to uncover. (LogOut/ It accepts greater economic inequality and disfavors unionization. Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique, by Roderick A. Ferguson. Carruthers presents an intersectional analysis in the video. Working from classic texts of European and American writers . The sense of a historical moment is strong in the essay, as its title underscores. Her work aims to create young leaders in marginalized communities to fight for community interests and liberation. In exchange, it prohibited the discrimination of closeted service persons. Drawing on feminist scholarship and the work of Michel Foucault, Sedgwick uncovered purportedly hidden homoerotic subplots in writers like Charles Dickens, Henry James and Marcel Proust. Sedgwick focuses on Claggarts relation to Billy and the ship captain, Vere, in order to interrogate the relation of suspicion and hostility that characterizes Billys disposition toward Claggart. Bornstein describes how she sees the future of gender. This is our fight, and even if we are a small population, our fight is rooted in democratic values and human rights, the right to life and dignity. Get help and learn more about the design. Again, her argument against attempting to list ones familial identity and relationships to others is particularly useful. For Foucault, power does not repress a preexisting sexual identity; it provides the conditions needed for sexual identities to multiply. In exchange, it prohibited the discrimination of closeted service persons. By evoking the images of the countless teenagers who commit suicide each year due to the manner in which society condemns their identity, the individuals for whom Christmas -a holiday itself constituted in the image of the family- is a time of exclusion from a grand sense of unity rather than a source of joy, and the people who struggle to hold onto life in the face of physically devastating illnesses while simultaneously having death wished upon them from members of society who regard them as filth, Sedgwick ensures her readers never lose sight of the tangible stakes of her argument (6) As the introduction comes to a close, her meditation on the anti-intellectualism of our age made me realize just how much her ideas affect my own life in ways I never had realized. This part in itself essentially functions for me as a de facto Queer Manifesto, one with which I frontload my rereading of the entire piece, so that I immediately feel the polemic force of Sedgwicks anti-PC-America argument. Halperin is cofounder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Those identified as homosexual in medical discourse appropriated the discourse to revise what the category might mean, identify one another, build a community, and make political demands. However, perhaps her discussion of her struggle with breast cancer and how it affects her gender and sexual identity, a necessary and poignant tale in itself, may have been better developed and resonated in a separate memoir-centered piece in Tendencies. Queer Nation was the first national activist group to employ the term queer in its name. 1993. Sedgwick opens this chapter by recounting the legal case of an eighth grade science teacher named Acanfora who was removed from his teaching position once the school board found out that he had been part of a pro-homosexual student group during his college years. Product Information. The play of her mind as it goes from Henry James to John Waters and Divine, from AIDS to Jane Austen and women's anal eroticism, is dazzling. Ferguson demonstrates that predominantly white sociologists have used works by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and other African American writers to construct theories about Black sexualities and therefore Black people (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003). Icon Books is licensed under a, Figure 1.4 Icon Books is licensed under a, Figure 1.5. Halberstam argues that female masculinity actually affords us a glimpse of how masculinity is constructed as masculinity.[24] In other words, women and especially lesbians who are masculine reveal masculinity as a construct, in much the same way that drag queen performances reveal femininity as a construct.

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