Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology

Description

While over the past decade a number of scholars have done significant work on questions of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered identities, this volume is the first to collect this groundbreaking work and make black queer studies visible as a developing field of study in the United States. Bringing together essays by established and emergent scholars, this collection assesses the strengths and weaknesses of prior work on race and sexuality and highlights the theoretical and political issues at stake in the nascent field of black queer studies. Including work by scholars based in English, film studies, black studies, sociology, history, political science, legal studies, cultural studies, and performance studies, the volume showcases the broadly interdisciplinary nature of the black queer studies project. The contributors consider representations of the black queer body, black queer literature, the pedagogical implications of black queer studies, and the ways that gender and sexuality have been glossed over in black studies and race and class marginalized in queer studies. Whether exploring the closet as a racially loaded metaphor, arguing for the inclusion of diaspora studies in black queer studies, considering how the black lesbian voice that was so expressive in the 1970s and 1980s is all but inaudible today, or investigating how the social sciences have solidified racial and sexual exclusionary practices, these insightful essays signal an important and necessary expansion of queer studies. Contributors. Bryant K. Alexander, Devon Carbado, Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Keith Clark, Cathy Cohen, Roderick A. Ferguson, Jewelle Gomez, Phillip Brian Harper, Mae G. Henderson, Sharon P. Holland, E. Patrick Johnson, Kara Keeling, Dwight A. McBride, Charles I. Nero, Marlon B. Ross, Rinaldo Walcott, Maurice O. Wallace TITLE PAGE......Page 3 COPYRIGHT PAGE......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 9 FOREWORD: “HOME” IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD......Page 10 INTRODUCTION: QUEERING BLACK STUDIES/ “QUARING” QUEER STUDIES......Page 13 NOTES......Page 24 PART I: DISCIPLINARY TENSIONS: BLACK STUDIES/QUEER STUDIES......Page 26 PUNKS, BULLDAGGERS,AND WELFARE QUEENS: THE RADICALPOTENTIAL OF QUEER POLITICS?......Page 27 THE EMERGENCE OF QUEER POLITICS AND A NEW POLITICS OF TRANSFORMATION......Page 29 THE ROOT OF QUEER POLITICS: CHALLENGING HETERONORMATIVITY?......Page 33 HETEROSEXUALS ON THE (OUT)SIDE OF HETERONORMATIVITY......Page 39 CONCLUSION: DESTABILIZATION AND RADICAL COALITION WORK......Page 43 NOTES......Page 47 RACE-ING HOMONORMATIVITY: CITIZENSHIP, SOCIOLOGY, AND GAY IDENTITY......Page 50 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND THE GENEALOGY OF WHITE ETHNICITY......Page 52 THE NONNORMATIVE PROPERTIES OF RACIAL DIFFERENCE......Page 54 HOMONORMATIVITY AND THE COHERENCE OF CITIZENSHIP......Page 56 THE POLYMORPHOUS EXCLUSIONS OF HOMONORMATIVITY......Page 58 NOTES......Page 62 STRAIGHT BLACK STUDIES: ON AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES,: JAMES BALDWIN, AND BLACK QUEER STUDIES......Page 63 NOTES......Page 76 OUTSIDE IN BLACK STUDIES: READING FROM A QUEER PLACE IN THE DIASPORA......Page 79 NOTES......Page 89 THE EVIDENCE OF FELT INTUITION: MINORITY EXPERIENCE, EVERYDAY LIFE, AND CRITICAL SPECULATIVE KNOWLEDGE......Page 91 NOTES......Page 102 “QUARE” STUDIES, OR (ALMOST) EVERYTHING I KNOW: ABOUT QUEER STUDIES I LEARNED FROM MY GRANDMOTHER......Page 104 “RACE TROUBLE”: QUEER STUDIES OR THE STUDY OF WHITE QUEERS......Page 107 “YOUR BLUES AIN’T LIKE MINE”: THE INVALIDATION OF “EXPERIENCE”......Page 110 “QUARING” THE QUEER: TROPING THE TROPE......Page 113 SEEING THROUGH QUARE EYES: READING MARLON RIGGS’S BLACK IS… BLACK AIN’T......Page 118 BRINGIN’ IT ON “HOME”: QUARE STUDIES ON THE BACK PORCH......Page 122 CODA......Page 124 NOTES......Page 125 PART II: REPRESENTING THE “RACE”: BLACKNESS, QUEERS, AND THE POLITICS OF VISIBILITY......Page 131 BEYOND THE CLOSET AS RACELESS PARADIGM......Page 132 BEYOND THE BODY HOMOSEXUAL: AN EPISTEMOLOGY OF RACIAL CLAUSTROPHILIA......Page 134 BLACK FAGGOTRY BEYOND THE CLOSET NARRATIVE......Page 145 NOTES......Page 149 PRIVILEGE......Page 153 MALE PRIVILEGES......Page 155 HETEROSEXUAL PRIVILEGES......Page 160 CONCLUSION: RESISTING PRIVILEGES......Page 166 NOTES......Page 168 “JOINING THE LESBIANS”: CINEMATIC REGIMES OF BLACK LESBIAN VISIBILITY......Page 171 “NOW WE THINK AS WE FUCK”: 8 AN ANTIDOTE TO INNOCENT NOTIONS......Page 173 “WE CALLED THEM ‘WOMEN-LOVERS”’; OR, SOME OF THE THINGS THAT ARE FORGOTTEN WHILE “THE WATERMELON WOMAN” IS “LIVING WITH PRIDE”15......Page 176 NOTES......Page 180 WHY ARE THE GAY GHETTOES WHITE?......Page 182 RACE AND GAY NEIGHBORHOOD FORMATION IN NEW ORLEANS......Page 184 CONTROLLING IMAGES OF BLACK GAY MEN......Page 187 RACE, RACISM, CLASS, AND HOUSING......Page 192 CONCLUSION......Page 194 NOTES......Page 195 PART III: HOW TO TEACH THE UNSPEAKABLE: RACE, QUEER STUDIES, AND PEDAGOGY......Page 197 EMBRACING THE TEACHABLE MOMENT: THE BLACK GAY BODY IN THE CLASSROOM AS EMBODIED TEXT......Page 198 A STUDENT PERFORMING DRAG IN THE CLASSROOM......Page 203 TO TEACH OR NOT TO TEACH?......Page 207 NOTES......Page 208 ARE WE FAMILY? PEDAGOGY AND THE RACE FOR QUEERNESS......Page 211 NOTES......Page 217 ON BEING A WITNESS: PASSION, PEDAGOGY, AND THE LEGACY OF JAMES BALDWIN......Page 219 NOTES......Page 226 PART IV: BLACK QUEER FICTION: WHO IS “READING” US?......Page 228 BUT SOME OF US ARE BRAVE LESBIANS: THE ABSENCE OF BLACK LESBIAN FICTION......Page 229 NOTES......Page 235 JAMES BALDWIN’S GIOVANNI’S ROOM: EXPATRIATION, “RACIAL DRAG,” AND HOMOSEXUAL PANIC......Page 236 ROBERT O’HARA’S INSURRECTION: “QUE(E)RYING” HISTORY......Page 253 NOTES......Page 267 BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 271 CONTRIBUTORS......Page 297