LGBTQIA+ Studies / topics Books
New York University Press Brown and Gay in LA
Book SynopsisCo-Winner of the 2023 Latino/a Section Best Book Award, given by the American Sociological AssociationHonorable Mention, 2024 Best Book Award, given by the Asia and Asian America section of the American Sociological AssociationThe stories of second-generation immigrant gay men coming of age in Los AngelesGrowing up in the shadow of Hollywood, the gay sons of immigrants featured in Brown and Gay in LA could not have felt further removed from a world where queerness was accepted and celebrated. Instead, the men profiled here maneuver through family and friendship circles where masculinity dominates, gay sexuality is unspoken, and heterosexuality is strictly enforced. For these men, the path to sexual freedom often involves chasing the dreams while resisting the expectations of their immigrant parentsand finding community in each other. Ocampo also details his own story of reconciling his queer Filipino American idTrade ReviewTold through stories that redefine what it means to be a gay person of color at the intersection of homophobia, sexism, and racism... the text smoothly combines personal anecdotes with thorough sociological research, spotlighting those who feel they don't fit the archetype of the ideal gay man within predominantly White queer spaces, both virtual and in-person. Ocampo should be commended for presenting the lives of queer people of color in a humane, compassionate, and informative way. An important book that showcases different models for gay men of color. * Kirkus Reviews (starred) *The intersections of race, immigration, and queerness are as much at the core of Ocampo’s book as bigger-picture analyses of masculinity. This book is the best platform to dive into the matter and reemerge feeling inspired and motivated to just be and become one’s unique self, the person one was always meant to be. * Library Journal *Brown and Gay in LA documents the challenges of growing up gay for second-generation urban Latinos and Filipinos in this insightful blend of ethnography and memoir. Ocampo creates a collective voice out of the many people he interviewed while simultaneously honoring each experience. The result is a daring and provocative portrait of a uniquely diverse generation. * Publishers Weekly *At the heart of Brown and Gay in LA is a central interior tension people whose surroundings constantly show them the many ways in which they do not belong. A professor of sociology, Anthony Christian Ocampo weaves the stories of his interlocutors with personal narrative writing and workmanlike, scholarly prose to suggest a tenderness that comes from personal history. Rather than write strictly for academics, or write a memoir that is concerned only with the self, Ocampo splits the difference. -- Jason Frank * Vulture *A nuanced perspective on this particular kind of coming-of-age: coming out, perhaps leaving home for college, finding new families in public and private spaces. Ocampo writes lovingly of gatherings that have provided gay men of color an escape not just from the judgment of traditional families but also from the cultural dominance of white West Hollywood. -- Jireh Deng * Los Angeles Times *Ocampo analyzes with great empathy the struggles of his informants as gay children of immigrants, often with non-English-speaking families, conservative values, and Roman Catholic mores. Thoughtfully evoked and beautifully narrated. -- Vernon Rosario * The Gay & Lesbian Review *A brilliant and soulful ethnography that merges probing critical analysis, social history, and cultural inquiry, with emotional clarity and dignity. Ocampo uses his own experience as a queer Filipino person as a form of intellectual insight and wisdom, thereby demonstrating how the role of the imperial, distant scholar, in contrast, leaves so many stones unturned, and how care matters in rigorous scholarship. I highly recommend this beautifully written work. * Imani Perry, author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation *Anthony Christian Ocampo shows us page after page that superb research deserves the artful rendering of a dedicated artist offering up the resonances of that research to hungry, wide-eyed readers. In order to actually experience, not simply explore, and definitely not exploit, the lives of Brown and Gay men in LA, Ocampo summons the artistry of our finest writers, moving us from watcher to reader to witness to this once in a generation offering. * Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir and Long Division *Anthony Ocampo has written a book for our time. Brown and Gay in LA has got it all. This elegantly written and sociologically sophisticated book skillfully explores what it means to live at the intersection of immigration, race, and LGBTQ identity. Drawing on richly developed life histories of gay Latino and Filipino men in Los Angeles, Ocampo brings to light the untold stories of young men at the margins of multiple communities who experience the blunt force of racism and homophobia while also carving out spaces of community and belonging. Timely, relevant, and original, this could well be the most important book this year. * Roberto G. Gonzales, author of Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America *Through on-the-ground research and sensitive insights, Anthony Ocampo illuminates a generation escaping the pressures to assimilate by finding liberation among one another. Brown and Gay in LA presents a vivid, rigorous, and heartfelt examination of how community can serve as a radical bulwark against colonial legacies, religious intolerance, and racial exclusion. * Albert Samaha, author of Never Ran, Never Will: Boyhood and Football in a Changing American Inner City *Anthony Ocampo has crafted a gorgeous love letter to a distinctive generation of immigrant sons. In a series of tender portraits, he invites us into the heady world of Brown and Gay Los Angeles at a time of momentous change. Ocampo gracefully fuses his dual roles as storyteller and sociologist to distill the particulars and the universals of this cohort. The result is a transformative meditation on the meanings and substance of ambition in American life. * Ellen Wu, the author of The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority *Brown gay sons of immigrants have been largely invisible in nearly all their lifeworlds — often overtly or implicitly hostile to some part of their identity — as well as in the academic worlds that would do well to learn from them. Animated by his own voice and those of his many interviewees, Anthony Ocampo fills the void with a book that is richly storied, sociologically nuanced, affectingly written, effortlessly intersectional, and painfully hopeful. * Joshua Gamson, author of Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to Kinship *In this beautifully written book, Ocampo vividly tells the coming-of-age stories of over 60 young Filipino and Latino gay men in Los Angeles. Their experiences navigating the perilous landscapes shaped by racism and homophobia along with the fraught expectations of masculinity are heartbreaking. * Grace Kao, co-author of The Company We Keep: Interracial Friendships and Romantic Relationships from Adolescence to Adulthood *Brown and Gay in LA is at once an incisive sociological analysis of immigration from the perspectives of race, sexuality, and geography, and an emotive account of lives forged from multiple margins. Through Anthony Ocampo’s refusal to obey generic conventions, he joins his research participants in challenging dominant narratives that make legitimate movement across borders contingent on the capacity to inhabit societal norms. The result is an urgent book that not only asserts the existence of racialized queer experiences in particular times and places, but also invites reconsideration of the possibilities created through survivance of diverse itineraries of exclusion. * Jonathan Rosa, author of Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad *Brown and Gay in LA is a beautifully written representation that many queer people of color did not have previously. Ocampo is not only a skilled sociologist, but also an excellent storyteller. His approachable writing style, coupled with sharp sociological analyses, would benefit a wide range of audience, from undergraduate students to interested public audience alike... Ocampo tells an “I see you” story of visibility and recognition, acknowledging whole humanities of these gay sons of immigrants as well as other queer racial minorities whose identities and lives are often forcibly compartmentalized and fragmented. * Sociology of Race and Ethnicity *The book takes a very personal stance, allowing readers to relate to these individuals and their lives. The well-written preface provides helpful context, explaining the author's use of certain phrases and labels. Ocampo does a very good job of presenting qualitative research on a much-needed subject. -- A. J. Ramirez, Valdosta State University * CHOICE *
£12.34
University of Toronto Press Virtual Activism
Book SynopsisIn Virtual Activism: Sexuality, the Internet, and a Social Movement in Singapore, cultural anthropologist Robert Phillips provides a detailed, yet accessible, ethnographic case study that looks at the changes in LGBT activism in Singapore in the period 1993-2019. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted with activist organizations and individuals, Phillips illustrates key theoretical ideas including illiberal pragmatics and neoliberal homonormativity that, in combination with the introduction of the Internet, have shaped the manner by which LGBT Singaporeans are framing and subsequently claiming rights. Phillips argues that the activism engaged in by LGBT Singaporeans for governmental and societal recognition is in many respects virtual. His analysis documents how the actions of activists have resulted in some noteworthy changes in the lives of LGBT Singaporeans, but nothing as grand as some would have hoped, thus indexing the not quite aspect of the virtual. Yet, VTrade Review"Virtual Activism captures the complex, somewhat opaque effects of on-line activisms, representations and communications on off-line, face-to-face activities, politics and everyday relationships in Singapore." -- David Murray, Department of Anthropology, York University"Virtual Activism is a pivotal, brilliant contribution. Weaving together a careful ethnographic analysis of national belonging, online sociality, and queer subjectivity in Singapore, Phillips reveals complex dynamics of sexuality activism, tolerance, and rejection. Anyone wishing to understand how emerging regimes of capitalism, state power, and community mobilization are transforming societies in Southeast Asia and beyond will find this book an invaluable resource." -- Tom Boellstorff, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine"Robert Phillips takes us into the pre-history of Singapore’s Pink Dot and shows us the origins of how LGBT activists mobilized the Internet to create a virtual social movement in a country that prosecutes homosexuality. His cultural anthropology captures the illiberal pragmatic environment that shapes this movement and inscribes the voices of brave activists who had pioneered new networks of visibility and solidarity. For those unfamiliar with what activism was like before Pink Dot, this book ought to be a starting point." -- Audrey Yue, Department of Communications and New Media, National University of SingaporeTable of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures Note on Terminology 1. Little Earthquakes 2. The “Spectral Homosexual” and the Singaporean Media 3. Reimagining of the Nation, Online 4. The Internet and A New Public Sphere 5. Pushing the Boundaries in the Physical World 6. The Illiberal Pragmatics of Activism 7. Epilogue Appendix 1 Timeline of Events Appendix 2 Updates on Activists Notes References Acknowledgments
£46.75
University of Toronto Press Caring for LGBTQ2S People
Book SynopsisIncreasing awareness of healthcare disparities and unique health needs of LGBTQ2S people calls for a revitalization of health professional training programs. As new topics become integrated into these programs, there is a great need for a comprehensive resource that aligns with Canadian guidelines and standards of care. Caring for LGBTQ2S People identifies gaps in care and health care disparities, and provides clinicians with both the knowledge and the tools to continue to improve the health of LGBTQ2S people. Written by expert authors, this fully updated version builds on the critically praised first edition and highlights the significant social, medical, and legal progress that has occurred in Canada since 2003. The book includes general medical information and guidance that is useful for anyone providing care to LGBTQ2S people. Chapters in this edition provide background on the fundamentals of language, cultural competency, and the patient-provider relationshTable of ContentsList of Figures, Tables, and Boxes Foreword Acknowledgments 1. Why a Clinical Guide? Amy Bourns and Edward Kucharski 2. Improving Patient–Provider Relationships and Health Environments for 2SLGBTQ Patients Sydney Tam 3. History and Physical Examination Laura Stratton 4. Prevention and Screening for 2SLGBQ People Alexandre Coutin, Edward Kucharski, Amy Bourns, and Lisa Smith 5. 2SLGBTQ Children and Youth Catherine Maser and Ashley Vandermorris 6. Sexual Health Ian Armstrong and Jordan Goodridge 7. HIV Quang Nguyen 8. Mental Health Christopher Mcintosh 9. Substance Abuse Christopher (Kit) Fairgrieve 10. Reproductive Health Carrie Schram 11. Trans and Non-binary Health: Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy and Primary Care Amy Bourns 12. Indigenous LGBTQ and Two-Spirit Health Zongwe Binesikwe Crystal Hardy 13. Older 2SLGBTQ Adults and End-of-Life Decision Making Jacqueline Gahagan, Emily Hughes, and Elise Jackson 14. Caring for 2SLGBTQ Disabled People A.J. Withers, Laura Macdonald, and Elizabeth Harrison 15. LGBTQ Newcomers in Canada Mego Nerses, Nicholas Hersh, and Carol Geller Glossary Contributors Index
£38.70
University of Toronto Press Virtual Activism
Book SynopsisIn Virtual Activism: Sexuality, the Internet, and a Social Movement in Singapore, cultural anthropologist Robert Phillips provides a detailed, yet accessible, ethnographic case study that looks at the changes in LGBT activism in Singapore in the period 1993-2019. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted with activist organizations and individuals, Phillips illustrates key theoretical ideas including illiberal pragmatics and neoliberal homonormativity that, in combination with the introduction of the Internet, have shaped the manner by which LGBT Singaporeans are framing and subsequently claiming rights. Phillips argues that the activism engaged in by LGBT Singaporeans for governmental and societal recognition is in many respects virtual. His analysis documents how the actions of activists have resulted in some noteworthy changes in the lives of LGBT Singaporeans, but nothing as grand as some would have hoped, thus indexing the not quite aspect of the virtual. Yet, VTable of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures Note on Terminology 1. Little Earthquakes 2. The “Spectral Homosexual” and the Singaporean Media 3. Reimagining of the Nation, Online 4. The Internet and A New Public Sphere 5. Pushing the Boundaries in the Physical World 6. The Illiberal Pragmatics of Activism 7. Epilogue Appendix 1 Timeline of Events Appendix 2 Updates on Activists Notes References Acknowledgments
£17.99
University of Nebraska Press Gothic Queer Culture
Book SynopsisIn Gothic Queer Culture, Laura Westengard proposes that contemporary U.S. queer culture is gothic at its core. Using interdisciplinary cultural studies to examine the gothicism in queer art, literature, and thought—including ghosts embedded in queer theory, shadowy crypts in lesbian pulp fiction, monstrosity and cannibalism in AIDS poetry, and sadomasochism in queer performance—Westengard argues that during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries a queer culture has emerged that challenges and responds to traumatic marginalization by creating a distinctly gothic aesthetic.Gothic Queer Culture examines the material effects of marginalization, exclusion, and violence and explains why discourse around the complexities of genders and sexualities repeatedly returns to the gothic. Westengard places this queer knowledge production within a larger framework of gothic queer culture, which inherently includes theoretical texts, art, literature, performTrade Review"The real reason why Gothic Queer Culture is impossible to put down is that in addition to being meticulously argued, it is celebratory. In the spirit of Lady Gaga’s gleefully bloody and irreverent meat dress, with which Westengard opens the book, Gothic Queer Culture gracefully sidesteps moralizing judgements of the artists and writers whose challenging work it examines, choosing instead to emphasize the affirmative power of reveling in the lurid grey areas that queer artists and their work so often occupy."—Elizabeth Simins, Art Discourse“This tour-de-force of literary and cultural analysis connects eighteenth-century Gothic obsessions with traumatic realities of the twenty-first century. Queer theory, lesbian pulp fiction, the melancholy of AIDS, and sadomasochism—Laura Westengard helps us to understand these phenomena as never before.”—George E. Haggerty, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California, Riverside “Westengard takes a common idea—that gothic is queer—and inverts it to show the effects of unacknowledged trauma on marginalized communities. Gothic Queer Culture establishes Westengard as an exciting new voice in critical trauma studies, gothic studies, and queer theory.”—Nowell Marshall, author of Romanticism, Gender, and Violence: Blake to George Sodini Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Queer Cultures and Insidious Trauma 1. Haunted Epistemologies: Gothic Queer Theory 2. Live Burial: Lesbian Pulp and the “Containment Crypt” 3. Monstrosity: Melancholia, Cannibalism, and HIV/AIDS 4. Sadomasochism: Strategic Discomfort in Trans* and Queer of Color Performance Art Conclusion: The Challenges of Neoliberalism Notes Bibliography Index
£40.50
University of Nebraska Press A Certain Loneliness
Book Synopsis After contracting polio as a child, Sandra Gail Lambert progressed from braces and crutches to a manual wheelchair to a power wheelchair—but loneliness has remained a constant, from the wild claustrophobia of a child in body casts to just yesterday, trapped at home, gasping from pain. A Certain Loneliness is a meditative and engaging memoir-in-essays that explores the intersection of disability, queerness, and female desire with frankness and humor. Lambert presents the adventures of flourishing within a world of uncertain tomorrows: kayaking alone through swamps withalligators; negotiating planes, trains, and ski lifts; scoring free drugs from dangerous men; getting trapped in a too-deep snow drift without crutches. A Certain Loneliness is literature of the body, palpable and present, in which Lambert’s lifelong struggle with isolation and independence—complete with tiresome frustrations, slapstick moments, and grand triumphs—areTrade Review"The author knows herself well and shares thoughts, feelings, and impressions with grace and acute self-awareness. Readers will come away with a cleareyed portrait of the author through the stories of her joys, sorrows, and intimate impressions. A powerful testimony to the determination and strength necessary to persevere despite assumptions, scrutiny, and societal stigmatization."—Kirkus"A Certain Loneliness is an intriguing memoir. . . . Lambert's lessons in how she lives, how difficult every motion is when her body grows less and less useful every year, are enlightening, perhaps even necessary, for able-bodied readers. . . . That Lambert's is a vanishing condition makes her perspective unusual, but the frustration and emotional turmoil she suffers are perfectly common. Such results could stand to be better understood by the friends and loved ones of people with these conditions—or by anyone who has ever hugged a woman in a wheelchair without permission."—Katharine Coldiron, River Teeth"A Certain Loneliness is Lambert's wry, unstinting look at a life spent dealing with chronic pain and having a visibly imperfect body. . . . Lambert's body is the topography of her everyday travels. She's a sobering guide."—Nell Beram, Shelf Awareness"While Lambert's memoir shows us one woman's strength and courage in her battle to defeat fear, loneliness, and physical challenge, I'd like think this book offers more. It should make each of us question: do we build ramps for those differently able or do we simply ignore the problem and look away?"—Debbie Hagan, Brevity"Lambert's sensuous writing is not unlike the water she returns to again and again: fluid yet direct, supple and strong. A Certain Loneliness is about the failure and triumph of the body—in Lambert's life the former has often preceded the latter—and while her work is an important addition to the canon of disability studies, it should not be pigeon-holed as such. Lambert writes with a studied aloofness and matter-of-fact tone about a body that constantly generates conflict with itself and the world around it. There is a rich practicality to her wisdom, and a pure, knowing access to physicality despite that physicality’s limitations: I've only rarely seen these things so well captured on the page."—Sara Rauch, LAMBDA Literary"Through the sterling voice of this brilliant wordsmith, we bear witness to the struggle and grace of a lesbian body undiminished: the relationship with other lesbians and nature so beautiful, daring, and necessary for survival, the heart reverberates with applause."—Roberta Arnold, Sinister Wisdom“In these lyrical and elegiac essays, Sandra Lambert traces a profound relationship with nature—both the vanishing nature of the planet and the complex nature of her own philosophy. Her language is moving, intimate, and bracingly honest.”—Andrew Solomon, National Book Award–winning author of Far from the Tree“Having pushed her wheelchair past two hundred alligators, Lambert has written a brilliant and necessary account of a wise and triumphant life as a writer, activist, kayaker, lesbian lover, birder, and survivor of polio. I’m in awe of her gifts.”—Carolyn Forché, author of The Country between Us“I have loved Sandra Gail Lambert’s stunning and flexible prose for a long time and still was unprepared for the power and searing honesty of her memoir, A Certain Loneliness. This book is an act of tremendous beauty.”—Lauren Groff, author of New York Times bestseller Fates and FuriesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Solace: Three of the Places 2. The Laundromat 3. Figuring It Out 4. Well-Nourished White Child 5. Atlanta—1968 6. Sex Objects 7. Complex Math 8. Atlanta—1984 9. Becoming Lazy 10. Rolling in the Mud 11. Open-Water Swimmers 12. Pass the Hemlock 13. Poster Children 14. The Art of Budgeting 15. Mosquitoes 16. Negotiating a Life 17. Dehiscence 18. May or May Not 19. Atlanta—2007 20. The Last Period 21. Immoderation and Excess 22. Looking for the V 23. Yielding 24. I Am Here, in This Morning Light 25. Pride Goeth 26. Horror in the Okefenokee 27. I’m Fine, Thank You 28. The Blind Girl and the Cripple Get on a Plane 29. The Swimmer Source Acknowledgments
£15.19
University of Nebraska Press Nepantla Squared
Book Synopsis2021 Lambda Literary Awards FinalistNepantla Squared maps the lives of two transgender mestiz@s, one during the turn of the twentieth century and one during the turn of the twenty-first century, to chart the ways race, gender, sex, ethnicity, and capital function differently in different times. To address the erasure of transgender mestiz@ realities from history, Linda Heidenreich employs an intersectional analysis that critiques monopoly and global capitalism. Heidenreich builds on the work of Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of nepantleras, those who could live between and embody more than one culture, to coin the term nepantla², marking times of capitalist transition where gender was also in motion. Transgender mestiz@s, too, embodied that movement. Heidenreich insists on a careful examination of the multiple in-between spaces that construct lives between cultures and genders during in-between times of shifting empire and caTrade Review“[A] compelling contribution to how we understand trans and Latinx identities, urgently addressing the question of how gendered embodiment is conditioned by sociopolitical factors.”—Marcos Gonsalez, Los Angeles Review of Books "Well written, insightful, and thought provoking, Heidenreich's work is an important contribution to several fields, including Chicanx studies and history, and Trans studies and history. It is a must-read for those interested in the history of transmestiz@ identity and history in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands."—Yvette J Saavedra, New Mexico Historical Review“This queer Chicanx history project is everything such a project should be: a brilliant analysis with fresh and illuminating ideas and approaches, an unearthing of hidden trans stories, and an intellectual exploration of trans mestiz@ identity.”—Norma E. Cantú, Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University“Nepantla Squared is a welcome and refreshing contribution to intersectional trans, queer, and feminist histories of resistant gender. Linda Heidenreich provides a new depth of context to famous stories of anti-trans violence and resistance, like those of Jack Garland and Gwen Araujo, showing how these are stories about colonialism, capitalism, and neoliberal economic policy. Heidenreich’s writing is pleasurably readable and the book is insightful and original.”—Dean Spade, author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law“Historical, materialist, and timely, this book adds new important ways of understanding trans in different historical moments and through nonbinary mestiz@ indigenous roots and routes in the Americas.”—Kale Bantigue Fajardo, author of Filipino Crosscurrents: Oceanographies of Seafaring, Masculinities, and GlobalizationTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: History as Nepantla2 Chapter One. A World Created through Motion Chapter Two. Motion-Change in the Life and Times of Jack Mugarrieta Garland Chapter Three. NAFTA and Generative Movement in the Sixth Sun Chapter Four. Motion-Change in the Life and Times of Gwen Amber Rose Araujo Chapter Five. Nepantler@s of the Sixth Sun Conclusion: Into the Sixth Sun Notes Bibliography Index
£69.70
University of Nebraska Press Gothic Queer Culture
Book SynopsisProposes that contemporary US queer culture is gothic at its core. Using interdisciplinary cultural studies to examine the gothicism in queer art, literature, and thought, Westengard argues that a queer culture has emerged that challenges and responds to traumatic marginalization by creating a distinctly gothic aesthetic.Trade Review"The real reason why Gothic Queer Culture is impossible to put down is that in addition to being meticulously argued, it is celebratory. In the spirit of Lady Gaga’s gleefully bloody and irreverent meat dress, with which Westengard opens the book, Gothic Queer Culture gracefully sidesteps moralizing judgements of the artists and writers whose challenging work it examines, choosing instead to emphasize the affirmative power of reveling in the lurid grey areas that queer artists and their work so often occupy."—Elizabeth Simins, Art Discourse“This tour-de-force of literary and cultural analysis connects eighteenth-century Gothic obsessions with traumatic realities of the twenty-first century. Queer theory, lesbian pulp fiction, the melancholy of AIDS, and sadomasochism—Laura Westengard helps us to understand these phenomena as never before.”—George E. Haggerty, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California, Riverside “Westengard takes a common idea—that gothic is queer—and inverts it to show the effects of unacknowledged trauma on marginalized communities. Gothic Queer Culture establishes Westengard as an exciting new voice in critical trauma studies, gothic studies, and queer theory.”—Nowell Marshall, author of Romanticism, Gender, and Violence: Blake to George Sodini Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Queer Cultures and Insidious Trauma 1. Haunted Epistemologies: Gothic Queer Theory 2. Live Burial: Lesbian Pulp and the “Containment Crypt” 3. Monstrosity: Melancholia, Cannibalism, and HIV/AIDS 4. Sadomasochism: Strategic Discomfort in Trans* and Queer of Color Performance Art Conclusion: The Challenges of Neoliberalism Notes Bibliography Index
£21.59
University of Nebraska Press Nepantla Squared
Book Synopsis2021 Lambda Literary Awards FinalistNepantla Squared maps the lives of two transgender mestiz@s, one during the turn of the twentieth century and one during the turn of the twenty-first century, to chart the ways race, gender, sex, ethnicity, and capital function differently in different times. To address the erasure of transgender mestiz@ realities from history, Linda Heidenreich employs an intersectional analysis that critiques monopoly and global capitalism. Heidenreich builds on the work of Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of nepantleras, those who could live between and embody more than one culture, to coin the term nepantla², marking times of capitalist transition where gender was also in motion. Transgender mestiz@s, too, embodied that movement. Heidenreich insists on a careful examination of the multiple in-between spaces that construct lives between cultures and genders during in-between times of shifting empire and caTrade Review“[A] compelling contribution to how we understand trans and Latinx identities, urgently addressing the question of how gendered embodiment is conditioned by sociopolitical factors.”—Marcos Gonsalez, Los Angeles Review of Books "Well written, insightful, and thought provoking, Heidenreich's work is an important contribution to several fields, including Chicanx studies and history, and Trans studies and history. It is a must-read for those interested in the history of transmestiz@ identity and history in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands."—Yvette J Saavedra, New Mexico Historical Review“This queer Chicanx history project is everything such a project should be: a brilliant analysis with fresh and illuminating ideas and approaches, an unearthing of hidden trans stories, and an intellectual exploration of trans mestiz@ identity.”—Norma E. Cantú, Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University“Nepantla Squared is a welcome and refreshing contribution to intersectional trans, queer, and feminist histories of resistant gender. Linda Heidenreich provides a new depth of context to famous stories of anti-trans violence and resistance, like those of Jack Garland and Gwen Araujo, showing how these are stories about colonialism, capitalism, and neoliberal economic policy. Heidenreich’s writing is pleasurably readable and the book is insightful and original.”—Dean Spade, author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law“Historical, materialist, and timely, this book adds new important ways of understanding trans in different historical moments and through nonbinary mestiz@ indigenous roots and routes in the Americas.”—Kale Bantigue Fajardo, author of Filipino Crosscurrents: Oceanographies of Seafaring, Masculinities, and GlobalizationTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: History as Nepantla2 Chapter One. A World Created through Motion Chapter Two. Motion-Change in the Life and Times of Jack Mugarrieta Garland Chapter Three. NAFTA and Generative Movement in the Sixth Sun Chapter Four. Motion-Change in the Life and Times of Gwen Amber Rose Araujo Chapter Five. Nepantler@s of the Sixth Sun Conclusion: Into the Sixth Sun Notes Bibliography Index
£21.59
University of Nebraska Press The Umpire Is Out
Book SynopsisDale Scott’s career as a professional baseball umpire spanned nearly forty years, including thirty-three in the Major Leagues, from 1985 to 2017. He worked exactly a thousand games behind the plate, calling balls and strikes at the pinnacle of his profession, working in every Major League Baseball stadium, and interacting with dozens of other top-flight umpires, colorful managers, and hundreds of players, from future Hall of Famers to one-game wonders. Scott has enough stories about his career on the field to fill a dozen books, and there are plenty of those stories here. He’s not interested in settling scores, but throughout the book he’s honest about managers and players, some of whom weren’t always perfect gentlemen. But what makes Scott’s book truly different is his unique perspective as the only umpire in the history of professional baseball to come out as gay during his career. Granted, that was after decades of remaining in the closet, aTrade Review"A rollicking new memoir. . . . Scott is cheery yet candid about the indignities of umpiring."—John Swansburg, New York Times"The Umpire Is Out offers so many inside stories on great names in baseball history. Scott is honest in how he explains each encounter. He's a man you can't help but to root for in his coming years as a private (baseball) citizen. Scott truly is one of the better ambassadors of the game."—Don Laible, Bradenton Times"[The Umpire Is Out] is highly recommended as a biographical memoir of umpiring and the game itself over the past forty years, and also as a non-salacious, candid portrait of gay life in American sports over the same era. It is generous, humorous, enjoyable, and is a great source for learning about both subjects—"The Wedge," as it were, of Scott's professional and personal life."—Tim Wiles, NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture“Dale Scott was both consistent and approachable, perhaps the two most important qualities for an umpire. Dale’s personal story is inspirational, but his book also features vivid game stories from a truly great run at the top of his profession.”—David Cone“Dale’s personal story differs dramatically from those of his umpiring colleagues. And yet, what also shines through is what he and so many of us have in common: an abiding love of baseball and an appreciation for what the game has meant to our lives. This is a textured story, both entertaining and meaningful. And told with uncommon grace.”—Bob Costas“As the late, great Ernie Harwell once said to me about Dale, ‘A great umpire is like a great driver in traffic: you never notice they’re there.’ That was Dale Scott. He had a great, consistent strike zone, and I don’t recall him ever missing a call on the bases. But as good an umpire as Dale was, he’s also one of my all-time favorite people.”—Harold Reynolds“Dale Scott umpired for more than thirty years in the big leagues. He’s seen it all, and most of the best parts seem to have wound up in these pages. But heck, I’d buy the book just for the chapter on the José Bautista Bat Flip Game!”—Dan Shulman“For more than ten years, Dale Scott made me laugh every day. As a mentor, he taught me how to not only survive but excel in the Major Leagues, and I am forever grateful for his friendship and leadership. This memoir delivers the humor, excitement, and knowledge that only a true insider can provide. Make the right call and read this book!”—Dan IassognaTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Foreword by Billy Bean 1. Nutcutters, Polebenders, and Shithouses 2. Eugene 3. Playing the Game 4. “You Were Terrible!” 5. “He’s That Blind SOB” 6. Only in the Dominican 7. Getting the Call 8. When Sparky Quit Chewing 9. “Mike, Your Mom Is Blasting Me” 10. Sophomore Slump 11. For the Last Time 12. “I Can Put Two and Two Together” 13. TK 14. Hardly the First 15. “What Do You Mean, Colorful?” 16. Nolan and George 17. Hello Again, Boss 18. Jeffrey Who? 19. A Long Way from Bradenton 20. “What Flavor Was the Kool-Aid?” 21. W. 22. Like a Human Blood Clot 23. “Hell Has Frozen Over” 24. “Hey, Lou, You Missed a Spot” 25. “I Am the Walrus” 26. Postseason from Hell 27. Get the Hell Out of the Way 28. From Frank’s Friendly to Jimmy Fallon 29. Flip 30. “I Can’t Believe This Is Happening Again” 31. No Complaints, No Regrets Acknowledgments Appendix Index
£25.19
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Stone Motel Memoirs of a Cajun Boy
Book SynopsisTells the story of a gay preteen, his seven siblings, their violent father, overwhelmed mother, unstoppable grandmother, and the sordid array of customers they encounter at their family's roadside motel, situated in the hot, prairie town of Eunice, Louisiana.Trade ReviewIts details impressive, Stone Motel is a layered memoir, both nostalgic and forthright in recalling family struggles. One of the three best gay biography books of all time
£31.96
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Queer Anxieties of Young Adult Literature and
Book SynopsisArgues that the themes that generate the most anxiety about adolescent culture - queer visibility, risk taking, HIV/AIDS, dystopia and horror, and the promise that ""It Gets Better"" and the threat that it might not - challenge us to rethink how we read and engage with young people's media.
£81.75
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Queer Anxieties of Young Adult Literature and
Book SynopsisArgues that the themes that generate the most anxiety about adolescent culture - queer visibility, risk taking, HIV/AIDS, dystopia and horror, and the promise that ""It Gets Better"" and the threat that it might not - challenge us to rethink how we read and engage with young people's media.
£27.96
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi The Transformative Potential of LGBTQ Childrens
Book SynopsisIdentifies an archive of over 150 English-language children’s picture books that explicitly represent LGBTQ+ identities, expressions, and issues. This archive is then analysed to explore the evolution of LGBTQ+ characters and content from the 1970s to the present.
£18.86
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi The LGBTQ Comics Studies Reader
Book SynopsisExplores the exemplary trove of LGBTQ+ comics that coalesced in the underground and alternative comix scenes of the mid-1960s and in the decades after. Through insightful essays and interviews with leading comics figures, contributors illuminate the critical opportunities, current interactions, and future directions of these comics.
£85.00
University Press of Mississippi The LGBTQ Comics Studies Reader
Book SynopsisContributions by Michelle Ann Abate, William S. Armour, Alison Bechdel, Jennifer Camper, Tesla Cariani, Matthew Cheney, Hillary Chute, Edmond (Edo) Ernest dit Alban, Ramzi Fawaz, Margaret Galvan, Justin Hall, Alison Halsall, Lara Hedberg, Susanne Hochreiter, Sheena C. Howard, Rebecca Hutton, remus jackson, Keiko Miyajima, Chinmay Murali, Marina Rauchenbacher, Katharina Serles, Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Jonathan Warren, and Lin Young The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader explores the exemplary trove of LGBTQ+ comics that coalesced in the underground and alternative comix scenes of the mid-1960s and in the decades after. Through insightful essays and interviews with leading comics figures, volume contributors illuminate the critical opportunities, current interactions, and future directions of these comics. This heavily illustrated volume engages with the work of preeminent artists across the globe, such as Howard Cruse, Edie Fake, Justin Hall, Jennifer Camper, and Ali
£24.71
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Carnival in Alabama
Book SynopsisLooks not only at the people who participated in Mardi Gras organisations divided by race, gender, and/or sexual orientation, but also investigates the experience of ‘marked bodies’ outside of these organisations, or people involved in Carnival through their labour or as audiences (or publics) of the spectacle.
£73.80
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Carnival in Alabama
Book SynopsisLooks not only at the people who participated in Mardi Gras organisations divided by race, gender, and/or sexual orientation, but also investigates the experience of ‘marked bodies’ outside of these organisations, or people involved in Carnival through their labour or as audiences (or publics) of the spectacle.
£23.70
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Terrence McNally
Book SynopsisCollects nineteen interviews with the celebrated playwright. In these interviews, one hears Terrence McNally reflect on theatre as the most collaborative of the arts, the economic pressures that drive the theatre industry, the unique values of music and dance, and the changes in American theatre over McNally’s fifty-plus year career.
£73.80
University Press of Mississippi The Welcome
Book SynopsisAshton, Mississippi, provides the deceptively sterile, conforming, and blindly respectable background in The Welcome, a novel written by Hubert Creekmore in 1948. Ahead of its time in the depiction of same-sex relationships, the novel caused a scandal upon release.
£18.86
Cornell University Press SameSex Marriage in Renaissance Rome
Book SynopsisFrom the tenor of contemporary discussions, it would be easy to conclude that the idea of marriage between two people of the same sex is a uniquely contemporary phenomenon. Not so, argues Gary Ferguson in Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome. Making use of substantial fragments of trial transcripts Gary Ferguson brings the story of a same-sex marriage to life in striking detail. He unearths an incredible amount of detail about the men, their sex lives, and how others responded to this information, which allows him to explore attitudes toward marriage, sex, and gender at the time. Emphasizing the instability of marriage in premodern Europe, Ferguson argues that same-sex unions should be considered part of the institution''s complex and contested history.Trade ReviewFerguson's findings about a group of foreign immigrants appropriating the social and religious ritual of marriage within their own self-defined community open up a new window on homosexual activity in Renaissance Rome. The author has deftly uncovered a clandestine subculture that departed from traditional gender norms, sexual stereotypes, and marriage practices, making an important contribution to the history of marriage and sexuality. * American Historical Review *In its analysis of texts, narrative and legal, Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome is truly exemplary. * Journal of Modern History *This is a short book, but it punches above its weight. Although the book will be of most interest to historians of sexuality and other early modern historians, I would not hesitate to give it to students as an excellent model of how to read historical documents as texts while also placing them within several different relevant contexts and opening up productive ambiguities. * Journal of the History of Sexuality *[The book is a] splendid microhistorical investigation, a piece of archival detective work that challenges prevailing views about sexual identity in early modern Europe.... It is compelling reading that should make scholars, students, and activists think again about the history of sexuality. * H-Net Reviews/H-Histsex *An original and deeply thoughtful study.... Ferguson's sensitive discussion of the men's testimonies, fragmentary though they are, challenges 'some engrained historiographical notions' about same-sex erotic relationships in early modern Europe.... Ferguson's extraordinary, compassionate and poignant book allows these events to speak to us urgently about sexuality past and the present. * Gender & History *Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome will be of interest to historically inclined scholars from all disciplines, but will especially delight historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and art historians.... The case of the men at the church of Saint John at the Latin Gate demands attention, and should not be thought of as an exceptional event but as a new window into the diverse forms of historical sexuality and as a methodological example of the way to excavate these latent pasts. * H-Histsex *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Engagement PART I. STORIES—OBSERVERS 1. A French Writer Visits: Montaigne's Travel Journal and a Thrice-Told Tale 2. "Our Marriages"? Male to Male / Like Husband and Wife 3. Marriage— Rites, Analogues, Meanings 4. Other Witnesses, Other Stories PART II. STORIES—ACTORS 5. Final Hours: Wills and Execution 6. Voices on Trial: Beginning with Battista the Boatman 7. Saint John at the Latin Gate: Marco Pinto 8. Marriage as Alibi, as Euphemism, as Recruitment 9. Marriage and Community PART III. HISTORIES 10. Looking Forward / Looking Back: The History of Sexuality 11. Ghost Stories: Queer History
£31.35
Cornell University Press Trans Historical
Book SynopsisTrans Historical explores the plurality of gender experiences that flourished before the modern era, from Late Antiquity to the eighteenth century, across a broad geographic range, from Spain to Poland and Byzantium to Boston.Refuting arguments that transgender people, experiences, and identities were non-existent or even impossible prior to the twentieth century, this volume focuses on archives—literary texts, trial transcripts, documents, and artifacts—that denaturalize gender as a category. The volume historicizes the many different social lives of sexual differentiation, exploring what gender might have been before modern medicine, the anatomical sciences, and the sedimentation of gender difference into its putatively binary form.The volume''s multidisciplinary group of contributors consider how individuals, communities, and states understood and enacted gender as a social experience distinct from the assignment of sex aTrade ReviewThe collection's concluding essays address methodological questions, frameworks, and terminology, offering many possibilities for approaching trans-centered analysis in medieval and early modern scholarship. Overall, the collection is an important contribution to the premodern era, and the diversity of sources, methodologies, and approaches will appeal to a wide variety of students and scholars. * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Benefits of Being Trans Historical, by Greta LaFleur, Masha Raskolnikov, and Anna M. Klosowska Part I: Archives: Revisiting Law and Medicine 1. Mapping the Borders of Sex, by Leah DeVun 2. Elenx de Céspedes: Indeterminate Genders in the Spanish Inquisition, by Igor H. de Souza 3. The Case of Marin le Marcis, by Kathleen Perry Long 4. The Transgender Turn: Eleanor Rykener Speaks Back, by M.W. Bychowski 5. Wojciech of Pozna and the Trans Archive, Poland, 1550–1561, by Anna M. Klosowska Part II: Frameworks: Representing Early Trans Lives 6. Recognizing Wilgefortis, by Robert Mills 7. Performing and Desiring Gender Variance in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, by Abdulhamit Arvas 8. Without Magic or Miracle: The Romance of Silence and the Prehistory of Genderqueerness, by Masha Raskolnikov 9. Transgender Translation, Humanism, and Periodization: Vasco da Lucena's Deeds of Alexander the Great, by Zrinka Stahuljak Part III: Interventions: Critical Trans Methodologies 10. Visualizing the Trans-Animal Body: The Hyena in Medieval Bestiaries, by Emma Campbell 11. Maimed Limbs and Biosalvation: Rehabilitation Politics in Piers Plowman, by Micah James Goodrich 12. Where Are All the Trans Women in Byzantium?, by Roland Betancourt 13. Performing Reparative Transgender Identities from Stage Beauty to The King and the Clown, by Alexa Alice Joubin 14. Laid Open: Examining Genders in Early America, by Scott Larson 15. Epilogue: Against Consensus, by Greta LaFleur
£97.20
Stanford University Press The Politics of Love in Myanmar: LGBT
Book SynopsisThe Politics of Love in Myanmar offers an intimate ethnographic account of a group of LGBT activists before, during, and after Myanmar's post-2011 political transition. Lynette J. Chua explores how these activists devoted themselves to, and fell in love with, the practice of human rights and how they were able to empower queer Burmese to accept themselves, gain social belonging, and reform discriminatory legislation and law enforcement. Informed by interviews with activists from all walks of life—city dwellers, villagers, political dissidents, children of military families, wage laborers, shopkeepers, beauticians, spirit mediums, lawyers, students—Chua details the vivid particulars of the LGBT activist experience founding a movement first among exiles and migrants and then in Myanmar's cities, towns, and countryside. A distinct political and emotional culture of activism took shape, fusing shared emotions and cultural bearings with legal and political ideas about human rights. For this network of activists, human rights moved hearts and minds and crafted a transformative web of friendship, fellowship, and affection among queer Burmese. Chua's investigation provides crucial insights into the intersection of emotions and interpersonal relationships with law, rights, and social movements.Trade Review"The Politics of Love in Myanmar is highly original, compelling, and powerful. Lynette Chua's ethnography excavates the emotional bonds and 'way of life' that developed through human rights practice by LGBT activists in post-2011 Myanmar. Beautifully written and brilliantly theorized, the book is highly recommended reading for scholars interested in human rights, legal mobilization, social movements, and LGBT politics." -- Michael McCann * University of Washington *"Lynette Chua deftly opens a new window on the empirical investigation of emotions, demonstrating the surprising ways that emotions animate not just relationships and social movements, but the interpretation, assertion, and lived meaning of rights. The lessons drawn from the vivid, human lives of Tun Tun, Tin Hla, and their fellow activists are a revelation." -- Kathryn Abrams * University of California, Berkeley *"In addition to being a pioneering and timely study of LGBT mobilization in Myanmar, Chua's book is a valuable contribution to the study of human rights and sociolegal scholarship on rights and social movements." -- Wei Wei * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThis introduces the book's central concept of human rights practice as a way of life and presents an overview of the Burmese LGBT movement. It sets out the three motivating questions of the book: How did the Burmese LGBT movement emerge? How do LGBT activists of the movement make sense of human rights and put them into action, that is, practice human rights? What are the implications of their human rights practice? The chapter also explains the significance of the book: a study about how human rights matter in a society where they were suppressed for decades and where self-conceptions have been informed by Buddhist beliefs and other cultural sources of knowing, feeling, and interacting with the world. 1Human Rights Practice as a Way of Life chapter abstractThis chapter elaborates on the book's central concept, human rights practice as a way of life, to explain how it advances human rights studies and sociolegal research on the relationship between rights and social movements. This concept has three salient features: (1) The practice comprises recursive, overlapping social processes of formation, grievance transformation, and community building, (2) which are shaped by and shape emotions and interpersonal relationships and (3) produce three outcomes: self-transformation of the rights bearer, the creation of a distinctive emotion culture, and the introduction of new claims by a new collective claimant, LGBT rights for LGBT people, into Burmese politics. The chapter also uses the concept to explain the flaws and limitations of Burmese LGBT activists' human rights practice. By tracing processes and attending to emotions and relationships, the concept emphasizes the complexities of agency when assessing the power and prospects of human rights. 2Forming the Movement: Founding Emotions and Social Ties chapter abstractThis chapter draws from the author's fieldwork to illustrate formation processes, the first of three sets of processes that make up Burmese LGBT activists' human rights practice as a way of life. As the chapter details the movement's emergence from formation processes, it begins to show how emotions and interpersonal relationships constitute human rights practice. To get in touch with and encourage other Burmese to participate in their human rights workshops and join the movement, movement pioneers make use of preexisting ties rooted in all kinds of suffering caused by the violence of the Burmese state and the discrimination of queer Burmese. By tapping these relationships, they also stir up raw emotions that stem from the suffering, affections toward movement leaders, and a mix of apprehension, courage, and composure that recruits have to muster to answer their calls. 3Transforming Grievances: Emotional Fealty to Human Rights chapter abstractThis chapter draws from the author's fieldwork to illustrate grievance transformation, the second set of social processes of human rights practice as a way of life. Grievance transformation elicits, remakes, and produces emotions to cultivate Burmese LGBT activists' fealty to human rights and perpetuate their practice. To make human rights relevant to their lives, they engage familiar cultural schemas and resources, using common experiences, Buddhist karmic beliefs and social norms that support the movement's cause and sidelining those that are disadvantageous to it. Their unique interpretation, centered around dignity, social belonging, and responsibility, depicts human rights as a collective good to be collectively achieved. The processes of grievance transformation lead to three interrelated outcomes—self-transformation, distinctive emotion culture, and new political claims of LGBT rights in Myanmar—demonstrating how human rights practice has the potential to influence formal institutions of law and politics from the bottom up. 4Building Community: Emotional Bonds Among Activists chapter abstractThis chapter uses empirical details to illustrate community building, the third set of processes in the human rights practice as a way of life. Community-building processes engender affinity, camaraderie, solidarity, and fellowship, which germinate affective ties among those who commit to their practice, forming a community of Burmese LGBT activists. The bonds emerge from the affinity of sharing the collective marker of "LGBT" and from the social interactions involved in practicing human rights together. They bind people together as LGBT activists, draw them to stay with the movement, and sustain the practice itself. Community building contributes to self-transformation, distinctive emotion culture, and new claims and claimant by emphasizing LGBT identities as an embodiment of dignity, facilitating bonding inclusive of all queer Burmese, and creating an LGBT activist community. They further highlight the potential to influence formal institutions of law and politics starting from personal and grassroots changes. 5Faults, Fault Lines, and the Complexities of Agency chapter abstractThis chapter examines the flaws and limitations of Burmese LGBT activists' human rights practice as a way of life. Power dynamics, differences, and divides among activists result in varying degrees of self-transformation and adoption of their distinctive emotion culture. Their ability to make LGBT rights claims is also hampered by deep norms, beliefs, power, and hierarchy in Burmese society. Because the shortcomings arise from the social processes of human rights practice, they also critically inform the power and prospects of human rights to stimulate collective action and social change. They are just as vital as the enthusiasm and optimism encountered in previous chapters. The shortcomings, together with the positive outcomes, indicate that human rights practice is far from overtaking the old and entrenched modes of feeling, interacting, and knowing already existing in Burmese society. Instead, with human rights, LGBT activists offer an alternative way of life alongside others. Conclusion chapter abstractThis chapter takes stock of the book's central concept, human rights practice as a way of life. It looks at the concept's principal features and contributions to human rights scholarship as well as the sociolegal study of rights and social movements. It considers the book's broader lessons for understanding the potential of human rights to advance collective action and attain social progress. It concludes with the intellectual premises with which the book started: the socially contingent nature of human rights, reflecting on what relational and emotional emphases mean for their empirical study.
£75.20
Stanford University Press The Politics of Love in Myanmar: LGBT
Book SynopsisThe Politics of Love in Myanmar offers an intimate ethnographic account of a group of LGBT activists before, during, and after Myanmar's post-2011 political transition. Lynette J. Chua explores how these activists devoted themselves to, and fell in love with, the practice of human rights and how they were able to empower queer Burmese to accept themselves, gain social belonging, and reform discriminatory legislation and law enforcement. Informed by interviews with activists from all walks of life—city dwellers, villagers, political dissidents, children of military families, wage laborers, shopkeepers, beauticians, spirit mediums, lawyers, students—Chua details the vivid particulars of the LGBT activist experience founding a movement first among exiles and migrants and then in Myanmar's cities, towns, and countryside. A distinct political and emotional culture of activism took shape, fusing shared emotions and cultural bearings with legal and political ideas about human rights. For this network of activists, human rights moved hearts and minds and crafted a transformative web of friendship, fellowship, and affection among queer Burmese. Chua's investigation provides crucial insights into the intersection of emotions and interpersonal relationships with law, rights, and social movements.Trade Review"The Politics of Love in Myanmar is highly original, compelling, and powerful. Lynette Chua's ethnography excavates the emotional bonds and 'way of life' that developed through human rights practice by LGBT activists in post-2011 Myanmar. Beautifully written and brilliantly theorized, the book is highly recommended reading for scholars interested in human rights, legal mobilization, social movements, and LGBT politics." -- Michael McCann * University of Washington *"Lynette Chua deftly opens a new window on the empirical investigation of emotions, demonstrating the surprising ways that emotions animate not just relationships and social movements, but the interpretation, assertion, and lived meaning of rights. The lessons drawn from the vivid, human lives of Tun Tun, Tin Hla, and their fellow activists are a revelation." -- Kathryn Abrams * University of California, Berkeley *"In addition to being a pioneering and timely study of LGBT mobilization in Myanmar, Chua's book is a valuable contribution to the study of human rights and sociolegal scholarship on rights and social movements." -- Wei Wei * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThis introduces the book's central concept of human rights practice as a way of life and presents an overview of the Burmese LGBT movement. It sets out the three motivating questions of the book: How did the Burmese LGBT movement emerge? How do LGBT activists of the movement make sense of human rights and put them into action, that is, practice human rights? What are the implications of their human rights practice? The chapter also explains the significance of the book: a study about how human rights matter in a society where they were suppressed for decades and where self-conceptions have been informed by Buddhist beliefs and other cultural sources of knowing, feeling, and interacting with the world. 1Human Rights Practice as a Way of Life chapter abstractThis chapter elaborates on the book's central concept, human rights practice as a way of life, to explain how it advances human rights studies and sociolegal research on the relationship between rights and social movements. This concept has three salient features: (1) The practice comprises recursive, overlapping social processes of formation, grievance transformation, and community building, (2) which are shaped by and shape emotions and interpersonal relationships and (3) produce three outcomes: self-transformation of the rights bearer, the creation of a distinctive emotion culture, and the introduction of new claims by a new collective claimant, LGBT rights for LGBT people, into Burmese politics. The chapter also uses the concept to explain the flaws and limitations of Burmese LGBT activists' human rights practice. By tracing processes and attending to emotions and relationships, the concept emphasizes the complexities of agency when assessing the power and prospects of human rights. 2Forming the Movement: Founding Emotions and Social Ties chapter abstractThis chapter draws from the author's fieldwork to illustrate formation processes, the first of three sets of processes that make up Burmese LGBT activists' human rights practice as a way of life. As the chapter details the movement's emergence from formation processes, it begins to show how emotions and interpersonal relationships constitute human rights practice. To get in touch with and encourage other Burmese to participate in their human rights workshops and join the movement, movement pioneers make use of preexisting ties rooted in all kinds of suffering caused by the violence of the Burmese state and the discrimination of queer Burmese. By tapping these relationships, they also stir up raw emotions that stem from the suffering, affections toward movement leaders, and a mix of apprehension, courage, and composure that recruits have to muster to answer their calls. 3Transforming Grievances: Emotional Fealty to Human Rights chapter abstractThis chapter draws from the author's fieldwork to illustrate grievance transformation, the second set of social processes of human rights practice as a way of life. Grievance transformation elicits, remakes, and produces emotions to cultivate Burmese LGBT activists' fealty to human rights and perpetuate their practice. To make human rights relevant to their lives, they engage familiar cultural schemas and resources, using common experiences, Buddhist karmic beliefs and social norms that support the movement's cause and sidelining those that are disadvantageous to it. Their unique interpretation, centered around dignity, social belonging, and responsibility, depicts human rights as a collective good to be collectively achieved. The processes of grievance transformation lead to three interrelated outcomes—self-transformation, distinctive emotion culture, and new political claims of LGBT rights in Myanmar—demonstrating how human rights practice has the potential to influence formal institutions of law and politics from the bottom up. 4Building Community: Emotional Bonds Among Activists chapter abstractThis chapter uses empirical details to illustrate community building, the third set of processes in the human rights practice as a way of life. Community-building processes engender affinity, camaraderie, solidarity, and fellowship, which germinate affective ties among those who commit to their practice, forming a community of Burmese LGBT activists. The bonds emerge from the affinity of sharing the collective marker of "LGBT" and from the social interactions involved in practicing human rights together. They bind people together as LGBT activists, draw them to stay with the movement, and sustain the practice itself. Community building contributes to self-transformation, distinctive emotion culture, and new claims and claimant by emphasizing LGBT identities as an embodiment of dignity, facilitating bonding inclusive of all queer Burmese, and creating an LGBT activist community. They further highlight the potential to influence formal institutions of law and politics starting from personal and grassroots changes. 5Faults, Fault Lines, and the Complexities of Agency chapter abstractThis chapter examines the flaws and limitations of Burmese LGBT activists' human rights practice as a way of life. Power dynamics, differences, and divides among activists result in varying degrees of self-transformation and adoption of their distinctive emotion culture. Their ability to make LGBT rights claims is also hampered by deep norms, beliefs, power, and hierarchy in Burmese society. Because the shortcomings arise from the social processes of human rights practice, they also critically inform the power and prospects of human rights to stimulate collective action and social change. They are just as vital as the enthusiasm and optimism encountered in previous chapters. The shortcomings, together with the positive outcomes, indicate that human rights practice is far from overtaking the old and entrenched modes of feeling, interacting, and knowing already existing in Burmese society. Instead, with human rights, LGBT activists offer an alternative way of life alongside others. Conclusion chapter abstractThis chapter takes stock of the book's central concept, human rights practice as a way of life. It looks at the concept's principal features and contributions to human rights scholarship as well as the sociolegal study of rights and social movements. It considers the book's broader lessons for understanding the potential of human rights to advance collective action and attain social progress. It concludes with the intellectual premises with which the book started: the socially contingent nature of human rights, reflecting on what relational and emotional emphases mean for their empirical study.
£19.79
Stanford University Press Who Needs Gay Bars?: Bar-Hopping through
Book SynopsisGay bars have been closing by the hundreds. The story goes that increasing mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, plus dating apps like Grindr and Tinder, have rendered these spaces obsolete. Beyond that, rampant gentrification in big cities has pushed gay bars out of the neighborhoods they helped make hip. Who Needs Gay Bars? considers these narratives, accepting that the answer for some might be: maybe nobody. And yet... Jarred by the closing of his favorite local watering hole in Cleveland, Ohio, Greggor Mattson embarks on a journey across the country to paint a much more complex picture of the cultural significance of these spaces, inside "big four" gay cities, but also beyond them. No longer the only places for their patrons to socialize openly, Mattson finds in them instead a continuously evolving symbol; a physical place for feeling and challenging the beating pulse of sexual progress. From the historical archives of Seattle's Garden of Allah, to the outpost bars in Texas, Missouri or Florida that serve as community hubs for queer youth—these are places of celebration, where the next drag superstar from Alaska or Oklahoma may be discovered. They are also fraught grounds for confronting the racial and gender politics within and without the LGBTQ+ community. The question that frames this story is not asking whether these spaces are needed, but for whom, earnestly exploring the diversity of folks and purposes they serve today. Loosely informed by the Damron Guide, the so-called "Green Book" of gay travel, Mattson logged 10,000 miles on the road to all corners of the United States. His destinations are sometimes thriving, sometimes struggling, but all offering intimate views of the wide range of gay experience in America: POC, white, trans, cis; past, present, and future. Trade Review"A fun, thoughtful, and nuanced examination of the past, present, and future roles of the 'gay bar' as the demand for and economics of queer community space wildly in flux." —Hugh Ryan, author of The Women's House of Detention and When Brooklyn Was Queer"Who Needs Gay Bars offers a powerful collection of microsociological portraits of gay bars across the United States. It accumulates into a nuanced map of a queer world shaped by desire, social and political urgencies, and politico-economic pressures as diverse as the community—from large urban to isolate rural outposts. It is ambitious in its expanse and surprisingly intimate in approach."—Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, The University of Texas, Austin"Breathtakingly intimate and yet vast in scope, this passion project balances sharp insights with the kind of lived-in details that make you want to pull up a stool and stay a while."—Samantha Allen, author of Real Queer America and Patricia Wants to Cuddle"With intelligent and easily accessible writing, this account stands as a testament to our community's resilience."—Alex Espinoza, author of Cruising and The Five Acts of Diego León"Queer bars have been a life-saving sanctuary for LGBTQ people over the last century, and they continue to serve as incubators, not just for queer and trans culture, but how we might also continue to build an even queerer future."—Honey Mahogany, Co-Owner, The Stud"In Who Needs Gay Bars? [Mattson] paints a vivid and nearly comprehensive portrait of the current state of gay bars as an institution and as an important component of the LGBTQ community in all its unwieldy diversity. He also paints a personal journey that many LGBTQ readers will relate to."—Gary L. Day, Philadelphia Gay News"Mattson does his best to survey as many of the myriad issues as possible, faced by an equally myriad number of bars of a dazzling variety. It's also a personal journey by the author that many LGBTQ readers will identify with."—Booklist"[one of] the best queer American travelogues since Edmund White's States of Desire was published way back in 1980."—Passport"[Who Needs Gay Bars?] does an excellent job of addressing how both the LGBTQ+ community and the non-LGBTQ+ community are responsible for the decline in access to gay bars.... Recommended."—A. J. Ramirez, CHOICETable of ContentsI: Ambivalence II: Gay Bar Fundamentals III: Safe Spaces for Whom IV: Lesbian-Owned Bars V: Cruisy Men's Bars VI: How to Save a Gay Bar VII: National Monuments
£23.39
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Sexuality and Citizenship
Book SynopsisSexual citizenship has become a key concept in the social sciences. It describes the rights and responsibilities of citizens in sexual and intimate life, including debates over equal marriage and women's human rights, as well as shaping thinking about citizenship more generally. But what does it mean in a continually changing political landscape of gender and sexuality? In this timely intervention, Diane Richardson examines the normative underpinnings and varied critiques of sexual citizenship, asking what they mean for its future conceptual and empirical development, as well as for political activism. Clearly written, the book shows how the field of sexuality and citizenship connects to a range of important areas of debate including understandings of nationalism, identity, neoliberalism, equality, governmentality, individualization, colonialism, human rights, globalization and economic justice. Ultimately this book calls for a critical rethink of sexual citizenship. Illustrating her argument with examples drawn from across the globe, Richardson contends that this is essential if scholars want to understand the sexual politics that made the field of sexuality and citizenship studies what it is today, and to enable future analyses of the sexual inequalities that continue to mark the global order.Trade Review"Diane Richardson has long had a reputation for acute sensitivity to the emergent issues in our complex sexual world. In this comprehensive but compelling book she tackles the central but contested concept of sexual citizenship. In Richardson's steady hands this becomes a lens to explore a range of critical ideas, analyses and experiences. The result is never less than illuminating and challenging, an invaluable guide to our perplexities."Jeffrey Weeks, author of What is Sexual History? "Drawing on literature from geography, gender studies, sociology and political science, Richardson challenges us to think in an interdisciplinary way about the impact of structural differences and marginalizations. As the leading scholar in this field, Diane Richardson offers an insightful engagement with the concept, and political outcomes, of sexual citizenship which is undoubtedly a must read for any contemporary student of the social sciences."Angelia Wilson, University of Manchester "Diane Richardson has given us a powerful resource for understanding the diverse debates and interdisciplinary approaches to sexual citizenship that will enhance our ability to produce rich, in-depth critical analyses of the shifting local, international, and transnational contexts for the co-constitution of sexuality and citizenship." Nancy A. Naples, Gender & Development “The book provides a persuasive and easy to read analysis of the sexual citizenship literature and how it has evolved over time, but also the limitations of sexual citizenship within the Euro-North American historical configuration. The conceptual analysis offers a social, cultural, economic and political exposition on the concept of sexual citizenship and brings forward the complex linkages of undeviating issues relating to sexuality, gender and citizenship.”SociologyTable of Contents1. Making Sexual Citizenship PART ONE: RE-THINKING SEXUAL CITIZENSHIP 2. What is Sexual Citizenship? 3. Limits to Sexual Citizenship 4. Sexualizing Citizenship: Now You See it, Now You Don�t PART TWO: TRANSFORMING CITIZENSHIP? SEXUALITY, GENDER AND CITIZENSHIP STRUGGLES 5. Global Influences on Sexuality and Citizenship 6. Sexuality, the State and Governance 7. Materializing Sexuality
£49.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd One-Dimensional Queer
Book SynopsisThe story of gay rights has long been told as one of single-minded focus on the fight for sexual freedom. Yet its origins are much more complicated than this single-issue interpretation would have us believe, and to ignore gay liberation's multidimensional beginnings is to drastically underestimate its radical potential for social change. Ferguson shows how queer liberation emerged out of various insurgent struggles crossing the politics of race, gender, class, and sexuality, and deeply connected to issues of colonization, incarceration, and capitalism. Tracing the rise and fall of this intersectional politics, he argues that the one-dimensional mainstreaming of queerness falsely placed critiques of racism, capitalism, and the state outside the remit of gay liberation. As recent activism is increasingly making clear, this one-dimensional legacy has promoted forms of exclusion that marginalize queers of color, the poor, and transgender individuals. This forceful book joins the call to reimagine and reconnect the fight for social justice in all its varied forms.Trade Review"One-Dimensional Queer is as clear an account as you could hope to encounter of how race and sexuality came to be understood as separate formations in US history. The resultant mainstreaming of LGBT cultures has been disastrous in terms of seeing our way out of the current crisis we inhabit. Offering solutions as well as critique, Ferguson's book is destined to be a crucial part of any library of liberation."—Jack Halberstam, Columbia University "In this searing critique of pink capitalism and rainbow-approved state violence, Ferguson slays the flat misnomer that the 1969 Stonewall Riots were only about gay sex. Instead, he brilliantly contextualizes Stonewall multi-dimensionally in histories of anti-racist and anti-imperialist rebellion."—Steven W. Thrasher, The Guardian and Northwestern University "One-Dimensional Queer is as clear an account as you could hope to encounter of how race and sexuality came to be understood as separate formations in US history. The resultant mainstreaming of LGBT cultures has been disastrous in terms of seeing our way out of the current crisis we inhabit. Offering solutions as well as critique, Ferguson's book is destined to be a crucial part of any library of liberation."—Jack Halberstam, Columbia University "In this searing critique of pink capitalism and rainbow-approved state violence, Ferguson slays the flat misnomer that the 1969 Stonewall Riots were only about gay sex. Instead, he brilliantly contextualizes Stonewall multi-dimensionally in histories of anti-racist and anti-imperialist rebellion."—Steven W. Thrasher, The Guardian and Northwestern University "One-Dimensional Queer raises provocative and important questions about the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality, and about the extent to which capitalism has determined the course of LGBT+ lives." (New York Journal of Books) "Gay liberation didn't originate as a single-issue movement, and must confront neoliberalism and gentrification as well as anti-queer violence." (Black Agenda Report) "A fascinating unearthing of seldom discussed LGBT history, including groups like STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) and the Philadelphia-area collective DykeTactics." (KPFA Women's Magazine) "One-Dimensional Queer demands that we reexamine the intersectional history of the LGBTQ movement, which was rooted in many other movements of the '60s and '70s, to find instruments of true radical change." (TruthOut.org) "Ferguson's book convincingly shows that the 'multidimensional' (or intersectional) queer story offers a more viable starting point for political-theoretical questions." (Die Tageszeitung – Kultur) "In One Dimensional Queer, Ferguson asks his reader not to parse individual elements of society but to consider how various gears work as a cohesive whole. Those who elide bits and pieces, whole chunks and swaths, of the history of oppression are complicit in that oppression. . . . Ferguson, alongside the many activists, historians, and critics he documents, offers a way forward towards liberation. And in doing so, Ferguson provides a way for us to think about creating a more just world; he offers his reader a way to consider one's queerness broadly, to open their methods of inquiry, and to consider history in a more spacious, more equitable way." (QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking) "[A]n extraordinary contribution to the fields of LGBTQ Studies, American Studies, and queer of color critique. One Dimensional Queer is necessary reading for scholars interested in the history of sexuality in the 20th-century US, queer theory, and gender and sexuality studies." (Women's Studies)Table of Contents Contents Introduction Chapter 1. The Multidimensional Beginnings of Gay Liberation Chapter 2. Gay Emancipation Goes to Market Chapter 3. Queerness and the One-Dimensional City Chapter 4. The Multidimensional Character of Violence Conclusion: The Historical Assumptions of Multidimensional Queer Politics Bibliography
£42.75
University of Pennsylvania Press Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire
Book SynopsisAt first glance, Barbara Kalish fit the stereotype of a 1950s wife and mother. Married at eighteen, Barbara lived with her husband and two daughters in a California suburb, where she was president of the Parent-Teacher Association. At a PTA training conference in San Francisco, Barbara met Pearl, another PTA president who also had two children and happened to live only a few blocks away from her. To Barbara, Pearl was "the most gorgeous woman in the world," and the two began an affair that lasted over a decade. Through interviews, diaries, memoirs, and letters, Her Neighbor's Wife traces the stories of hundreds of women, like Barbara Kalish, who struggled to balance marriage and same-sex desire in the postwar United States. In doing so, Lauren Jae Gutterman draws our attention away from the postwar landscape of urban gay bars and into the homes of married women, who tended to engage in affairs with wives and mothers they met in the context of their daily lives: through work, at church, or in their neighborhoods. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the lesbian feminist movement and the no-fault divorce revolution transformed the lives of wives who desired women. Women could now choose to divorce their husbands in order to lead openly lesbian or bisexual lives; increasingly, however, these women were confronted by hostile state discrimination, typically in legal battles over child custody. Well into the 1980s, many women remained ambivalent about divorce and resistant to labeling themselves as lesbian, therefore complicating a simple interpretation of their lives and relationship choices. By revealing the extent to which marriage has historically permitted space for wives' relationships with other women, Her Neighbor's Wife calls into question the presumed straightness of traditional American marriage.Trade ReviewThe strength of the book is Gutterman’s investment in reviewing and utilizing the personal letters that many women wrote to advocates...The correspondence and other sources that she examines also help her share stories from Black and Latina women who loved women, with some inclusion of Asian and Native American women as well, thus broadening the voices and experiences missing from white-focused lesbian narratives…[A] well-documented cultural history that reminds us just how deeply the 1970 feminist slogan ‘the personal is political’ reflected many women’s struggles to live their lives honestly and openly regarding their same-sex desires. * Journal of Women's Historty *Her Neighbor’s Wife is beautiful and smart and should be widely read…Gutterman’s broadest intervention into the historiography is her contention that marriage was queer. She points out that you got screened for the military but not for your marriage license; that you could lose your teaching license for being gay but remain in your marriage. Marriage in the postwar period contained room for queerness and, in making room, it became queer itself. Though we cannot know numbers, Gutterman is utterly convincing that marriage was very queer indeed. * The Sixties *Ambitious and wide-ranging, Her Neighbor’s Wife opens interesting, provocative questions and modes of inquiry for historians of sexuality and the field of LGBTQ studies…In addition to Gutterman’s careful attention to interlacing feminist and queer analysis, another strength of [the book] is the assembled archive…This, combined with Gutterman’s own oral histories and her sensitive, thoughtful reading of primary sources, makes this book an exemplar of methodological rigor. * Journal of the History of Sexuality *Her Neighbor's Wife is a revelation. Lauren Jae Gutterman locates lesbian histories not at the margins but at the center of postwar American life, often accommodated within marriages with men and family life. Alert to the complex meanings of married women's desire for women, beyond the poles of protest and conformity, Gutterman queers postwar marriage, the family, and normativity itself. * Regina Kunzel, author of Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality *In a field dominated by studies of gay men (still), Her Neighbor's Wife offers an LGBT history that centers a gendered analysis of women's lives. It is a critical intervention in histories of marriage, same-sex desires, feminism, and therapeutic ideas of the authentic self. * Rebecca L. Davis, author of More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss *Her Neighbor's Wife is an engaging, highly readable sociocultural history that serves as a necessary and illuminating corrective to the general dearth of lesbian history. Lauren Jae Gutterman shows the concept of fluidity has a much deeper past than what is typically imagined and that heterosexual marriage was much less straight than it seemed. * Heather Murray, author of Not in This Family: Gays and the Meaning of Kinship in Postwar North America *
£20.69
University of Pennsylvania Press The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac: The Politics of
Book SynopsisThe right to privacy is a pivotal concept in the culture wars that have galvanized American politics for the past several decades. It has become a rallying point for political issues ranging from abortion to gay liberation to sex education. Yet this notion of privacy originated not only from legal arguments, nor solely from political movements on the left or the right, but instead from ambivalent moderates who valued both personal freedom and the preservation of social norms. In The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac, Clayton Howard chronicles the rise of sexual privacy as a fulcrum of American cultural politics. Beginning in the 1940s, public officials pursued an agenda that both promoted heterosexuality and made sexual privacy one of the state's key promises to its citizens. The 1944 G.I. Bill, for example, excluded gay veterans and enfranchised married ones in its dispersal of housing benefits. At the same time, officials required secluded bedrooms in new suburban homes and created educational campaigns designed to teach children respect for parents' privacy. In the following decades, measures such as these helped to concentrate middle-class families in the suburbs and gay men and lesbians in cities. In the 1960s and 1970s, the gay rights movement invoked privacy to attack repressive antigay laws, while social conservatives criticized tolerance for LGBTQ+ people as an assault on their own privacy. Many self-identified moderates, however, used identical rhetoric to distance themselves from both the discriminatory language of the religious right and the perceived excesses of the gay freedom struggle. Using the Bay Area as a case study, Howard places these moderates at the center of postwar American politics and shows how the region's burgeoning suburbs reacted to increasing gay activism in San Francisco. The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac offers specific examples of the ways in which government policies shaped many Americans' attitudes about sexuality and privacy and the ways in which citizens mobilized to reshape them.Trade Review"In this elegantly argued, deeply researched book, Clayton Howard charts the history of the politics of the so-called right to privacy in American society since World War Two...[A] superb book, a major piece of scholarship that will change how we think about the history of modern sexuality and political economy in the United States since 1945. At a time when concepts of personal 'privacy' are once again politically fraught, this book helps us understand why popular opinion on the matter has long been considerably more complicated than the polarized binaries of much contemporary political and legal discourse. " * Journal of the History of Sexuality *"[A]n ambitious, well-researched, and important study. Howard weaves together an impressive range of sources that map connections between postwar federal housing policies, debates about urban reform, ordinary suburbanites’ sex lives, and early homophile activism...At a moment when calls for political consensus and moderation are widespread, Howard’s analysis of 'moderation’s small-‘c’ conservative tendencies' and its potential to hamper struggles for social justice is sorely needed." * History: Review of New Books *"[A]n original and ambitious study of postwar sexual politics in San Francisco and its suburbs..Bridging diverse subjects is Howard's attention to the question of sexual privacy, or, more specifically, the burgeoning assumption that nonnormative sexual practices and identities could be countenanced if they were relegated to the private sphere. . . . Howard's insights into the politics of sexual privacy and moderation are powerful and worthy of attention." * Journal of American History *"[A] wide-reaching, deeply researched work that is truly interdisciplinary in both its themes and archive...[I]t explores the interconnections among the history of sexuality, political history, urban history, the history of domesticity, architectural and design history, and legal history, putting all of these areas into productive conversation, not to mention into intellectual and social history writ large. It should serve as a model for other historians who wish to think about history outside of extreme, or at least firmly avowed ideological positions, and explore the analytical possibilities of ambivalence." * American Historical Review *"The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac is a fascinating book that brings together in revelatory ways the political economy of metropolitan development and the history of sexuality, offering new interpretations of postwar political culture. Through a rigorous investigation of housing and neighborhood development, it makes logical what first appears to be a paradox: the triumph of a 'tolerate but not endorse' politics around non-normative sexuality in the second half of the twentieth century. Clayton Howard makes a convincing case for a 'metropolitan' approach to political economy and social life and weighs the implications for sexual politics more thoroughly and creatively than I have seen anywhere else." * Sarah Igo, author of The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America *"Clayton Howard has written an important, provocative, and path-breaking book centered on a wide-ranging, eye-opening, and nuanced discussion of the right to privacy and its role in conversations about public and domestic spaces, sexual rights and freedoms, and the proper place of queer and straight people in the body politic. No one has identified the varied threads of privacy embedded throughout the social fabrics of modern cities and suburbs like this before." * Bryant Simon, Temple University *
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press Circulating Queerness: Before the Gay and Lesbian
Book SynopsisA new history of the queer novel shows its role in constructing gay and lesbian lives The gay and lesbian novel has long been a distinct literary genre with its own awards, shelving categories, bookstore spaces, and book reviews. But very little has been said about the remarkable history of its emergence in American literature, particularly the ways in which the novel about homosexuality did not just reflect but actively produced queer life.Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s insight that the history of society is connected to the history of language, author Natasha Hurley charts the messy, complex movement by which the queer novel produced the very frames that made it legible as a distinct literature and central to the imagination of queer worlds. Her vision of the queer novel's development revolves around the bold argument that literary circulation is the key ingredient that has made the gay and lesbian novel and its queer forebears available to its audiences.Challenging the narrative that the gay and lesbian novel came into view in response to the emergence of homosexuality as a concept, Hurley posits a much longer history of this novelistic genre. In so doing, she revises our understanding of the history of sexuality, as well as of the processes of producing new concepts and the evolution of new categories of language.Trade Review"Circulating Queerness outlines a queer literary history founded in ‘rogue circulation’—the surprising pathways and unexpected affinities that emerge when texts stray beyond their expected circuits—rather than identity. Natasha Hurley’s attention to the way queerness accrues through rereading and recirculation constitutes a powerful intervention into how we understand what queer literature has been and what it might become."—Dana Luciano, Georgetown UniversityTable of ContentsContentsPrologue: On the Queer Worlds of BooksIntroduction: Circuits, Lies, and the Queer Novel in America1. Acquired Queerness: The Sexual Life and Afterlife of Typee2. The Stoddard Archive and Its Dissed Contents3. Type Complication and Literary Old Maids4. Reading The Bostonians’s History of Sexuality from the Outside In5. Worlds Inside: Afterlives of Nineteenth-Century TypesCoda: Short Circuits and Untrodden PathsAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£20.69
University of Minnesota Press Gay, Inc.: The Nonprofitization of Queer Politics
Book SynopsisA bold and provocative look at how the nonprofit sphere’s expansion has helped—and hindered—the LGBT cause What if the very structure on which social movements rely, the nonprofit system, is reinforcing the inequalities activists seek to eliminate? That is the question at the heart of this bold reassessment of the system’s massive expansion since the mid-1960s. Focusing on the LGBT movement, Myrl Beam argues that the conservative turn in queer movement politics, as exemplified by the shift toward marriage and legal equality, is due mostly to the movement’s embrace of the nonprofit structure. Based on oral histories as well as archival research, and drawing on the author’s own extensive activist work, Gay, Inc. presents four compelling case studies. Beam looks at how people at LGBT nonprofits in Minneapolis and Chicago grapple with the contradictions between radical queer social movements and their institutionalized iterations. Through interview subjects’ incisive, funny, and heartbreaking commentaries, Beam exposes a complex world of committed people doing the best they can to effect change, and the flawed structures in which they participate, rail against, ignore, and make do. Providing a critical look at a social formation whose sanctified place in the national imagination has for too long gone unquestioned, Gay, Inc. marks a significant contribution to scholarship on sexuality, neoliberalism, and social movements.Trade Review"Gay, Inc. is a beacon of persuasive clarity, outlining the emotionally compelling but politically compromising role of nonprofit organizations in LGBTQ life. With nuanced ethnographic research, Myrl Beam provokes us to see the conflicts between mission and fundraising, between participants and donors, that shape our deepest commitments to social justice. Gay, Inc. is a must read for scholars and activists alike."—Lisa Duggan, New York University"An essential read for anyone who is trying to figure out how social change works, Gay, Inc. helps us understand queer and trans resistance in depth, bringing new insight into social movement debates about the role of nonprofits using grounded histories of resistance and conflict within queer politics."—Dean Spade, Seattle University School of LawTable of ContentsIntroduction1. Neoliberalism, Nonprofitization, and Social Change2. The Work of Compassion: Institutionalizing Affective Economies of AIDS and Homelessness3. Community and Its Others: Safety, Space, and Nonprofitization4. Capital and Nonprofitization: At the Limits of “By and For”5. Navigating the Crisis of Neoliberalism: A Stance of Undefeated DespairConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press Wild Mares: My Lesbian Back-to-the-Land Life
Book SynopsisA wry memoir of growing up, coming out, and going back to the land as a lesbian feminist in the rural Midwest of the 1960s and 70s Dianna Hunter was a softball-loving, working-class tomboy in North Dakota, surviving the threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Mutually Assured Destruction in the shadow of a strategic air command base. Communists and antiwar hippies were the enemy, but lesbians were a threat, too: they were unhealthy, criminal, and downright insane. It took Dianna a while to figure out that she was one, a little longer to discover how she fit in with her new communities in the city and the countryside. This is her story—a frank account by turns comic and painful of a well-behaved Midwestern girl finding her way through polite denial and repression and running head-on into the eye-opening events of the 1960s and ’70s before landing on a dairy farm.A bumpy route takes Dianna to the Twin Cities, then to rural Minnesota and Wisconsin as—by way of the antiwar movement, women’s liberation, and a dose of lesbian feminism—she and her friends try to establish a rural utopia free of sexual oppression, violence, materialism, environmental degradation—and men. They dream big, love as they see fit, and make do until they don’t. Dianna buys a dairy farm and, with it, a new set of problems thanks to the Reagan-era farm crisis. A firsthand account of the lesbian feminist movement at its inception, Wild Mares is a deeply personal, wryly wise, and always engaging view of identity politics lived and learned in real life and, literally, on the ground, flourishing in the fertile soil of a struggling dairy farm in the American heartland.Trade Review"Dianna Hunter’s engaging memoir thoughtfully recounts a feminist era, ethos, and way of life that until recently has been largely lost to the historical record. Told with nuanced self-reflection and respect for wider contexts, Hunter’s stories will challenge any narrow assumptions about what it was like to create and live the ‘second wave.’"—Finn Enke, author of Finding the Movement"Wild Mares is the riveting story of the struggles and integrity of a contemporary pioneer who tried to change the world with few resources other than her own extraordinary courage, stamina, resourcefulness, and idealism. From teaching the first women’s studies class at her college, to chopping wood and hauling it home through snowdrifts on a horse-drawn sleigh, to operating her own dairy farm, to advocating at the state government for struggling farmers, Dianna Hunter is an inspiring feminist force."—Nancy Manahan, author of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence"Wild Mares helps to remind people reading it in 2018 and beyond that much work has been done over the decades in the LGBTQ community, but the forces that aim to divide and regress are always present"—Woman Today"A worthwhile look at non-traditional twentieth-century farming, and at Midwestern lesbian history."—South Florida Gay News"Wild Mares refers to the horses Hudson loved, but also to the eager, sometimes-confused and socially-conscious wild young lesbians on whose shoulders the new generations stand."—Twin Cities Pioneer Press "Wild Mares is a slow burn of a read that offers an important glimpse into a slice of all-too-recent history. There is power in storytelling, in lifting voices, in showing how we were part of major cultural moments. " —AutoStraddleTable of ContentsPrologue1. The Great Man and the Dead Cow2. MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD World3. They Can’t Kill Us All (Can They?)4. A Room of My Own 5. Getting There6. The First Lesbian Conference7. Country Lesbian Manifesto8. The Trouble with Land9. Suzanne Takes You Down10. Family of Woman11. Women, Horses, and Other Embodied Spirits12. Lurk-in-the-Ditch13. Another Dance and a Funeral14. At the Speed of Hooves15. Rising Moon16. Making Hay17. Mel’s Place (Dick Pulls Us Through)18. Del Lago 19. Thundering Ice, Talking Spirits20. Ravenna’s Refuge21. Dancing Leads to This22. Divorce and Dispossession23. Going, Going, GoneAcknowledgmentsResources
£14.39
University of Minnesota Press Commodities of Care: The Business of HIV Testing
Book SynopsisHow global health practices can end up reorganizing practices of care for the people and communities they seek to serve Commodities of Care examines the unanticipated effects of global health interventions, ideas, and practices as they unfold in communities of men who have sex with men (MSM) in China. Targeted for the scaling-up of HIV testing, Elsa L. Fan examines how the impact of this initiative has transformed these men from subjects of care into commodities of care: through the use of performance-based financing tied to HIV testing, MSM have become a source of economic and political capital. In ethnographic detail, Fan shows how this particular program, ushered in by global health donors, became the prevailing strategy to control the epidemic in China in the late 2000s. Fan examines the implementation of MSM testing and its effects among these men, arguing that the intervention produced new markets of men, driven by the push to meet testing metrics. Fan shows how men who have sex with men in China came to see themselves as part of a global “MSM” category, adopting new selfhoods and socialities inextricably tied to HIV and to testing. Wider trends in global health programming have shaped national public health responses in China and, this book reveals, have radically altered the ways health, disease, and care are addressed. Trade Review"Commodities of Care is a forceful examination of how global health is working to transform patients from biomedical entities into market commodities. Elsa L. Fan’s ethnography is a tour de force, tracing the regime of HIV testing through the organizations established to serve gay men in China to show how they are co-opted by global audit regimes. This book will serve as an important bridge between global health and anthropology to begin dialogues that must happen for these fields to move forward."—Elanah Uretsky, author of Occupational Hazards: Sex, Business, and HIV in Post-Mao China "[Commodities of Care]continues the conversation among global health scholars on the unintended and sometimes negative consequences of metrics and audit culture. This book would be well suited for both graduate and undergraduate courses on gender and global health."—Gender & SocietyTable of ContentsContentsPrefaceIntroduction1. The Productivity of HIV Testing2. Making Up (and Making Available) MSM in China3. Markets of and Marketing to MSM4. Remaking Communities of Belonging5. Ethical Practice Among MSM in ChinaConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press Commodities of Care: The Business of HIV Testing
Book SynopsisHow global health practices can end up reorganizing practices of care for the people and communities they seek to serve Commodities of Care examines the unanticipated effects of global health interventions, ideas, and practices as they unfold in communities of men who have sex with men (MSM) in China. Targeted for the scaling-up of HIV testing, Elsa L. Fan examines how the impact of this initiative has transformed these men from subjects of care into commodities of care: through the use of performance-based financing tied to HIV testing, MSM have become a source of economic and political capital. In ethnographic detail, Fan shows how this particular program, ushered in by global health donors, became the prevailing strategy to control the epidemic in China in the late 2000s. Fan examines the implementation of MSM testing and its effects among these men, arguing that the intervention produced new markets of men, driven by the push to meet testing metrics. Fan shows how men who have sex with men in China came to see themselves as part of a global “MSM” category, adopting new selfhoods and socialities inextricably tied to HIV and to testing. Wider trends in global health programming have shaped national public health responses in China and, this book reveals, have radically altered the ways health, disease, and care are addressed. Trade Review"Commodities of Care is a forceful examination of how global health is working to transform patients from biomedical entities into market commodities. Elsa L. Fan’s ethnography is a tour de force, tracing the regime of HIV testing through the organizations established to serve gay men in China to show how they are co-opted by global audit regimes. This book will serve as an important bridge between global health and anthropology to begin dialogues that must happen for these fields to move forward."—Elanah Uretsky, author of Occupational Hazards: Sex, Business, and HIV in Post-Mao China "[Commodities of Care]continues the conversation among global health scholars on the unintended and sometimes negative consequences of metrics and audit culture. This book would be well suited for both graduate and undergraduate courses on gender and global health."—Gender & SocietyTable of ContentsContentsPrefaceIntroduction1. The Productivity of HIV Testing2. Making Up (and Making Available) MSM in China3. Markets of and Marketing to MSM4. Remaking Communities of Belonging5. Ethical Practice Among MSM in ChinaConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£19.79
University of Minnesota Press The Shapes of Fancy: Reading for Queer Desire in
Book SynopsisExploring forms of desire unaccounted for in previous histories of sexuality What can the Renaissance tell us at our present moment about who and what is “queer,” as well as the political consequences of asking? In posing this question, The Shapes of Fancy offers a powerful new method of accounting for ineffable and diffuse forms of desire, mining early modern drama and prose literature to describe new patterns of affective resonance.Starting with the question of how and why readers seek traces of desire in texts from bygone times and places, The Shapes of Fancy demonstrates a practice of critical attunement to the psychic and historical circulations of affect across time within texts, from texts to readers, and among readers. Closely reading for uncharted desires as they recur in early modern drama, witchcraft pamphlets, and early Atlantic voyage narratives and demonstrating how each is structured by qualities of secrecy, impossibility, and excess, Christine Varnado follows four “shapes of fancy”: the desire to be used to others’ ends; indiscriminate, bottomless appetite; paranoid self-fulfilling suspicion; and melancholic longings for impossible transformations and affinities. These affective dynamics go awry in atypical and perverse ways. In other words, argues Varnado, these modes of feeling are recognizable on the page or stage as “queer” because of how, and not by whom, they are expressed.This new theorization of desire expands the notion of queerness in literature, decoupling the literary trace of queerness from the binary logics of same-sex versus opposite-sex and normative versus deviant that have governed early modern sexuality studies. Providing a set of methods for analyzing affect and desire in texts from any period, The Shapes of Fancy stages an impassioned defense of the inherently desirous nature of reading, making a case for readerly investment and identification as vital engines of meaning making and political insight.Trade Review"The Shapes of Fancy pursues an innovative expansion of the lexicon of queer desire. Christine Varnado forges links between early modern and contemporary thinkers, and she engages a constellation of affective modes, from mediation and consumption to paranoia and melancholia. Her supple analyses illuminate the intricate, often unexpected vectors, artifacts, and afterlives of erotic connection."—Kathryn Schwarz, Vanderbilt University"Christine Varnado’s book makes a surprising and incisive intervention into early modern studies. In its queerest moments, The Shapes of Fancy argues for a capacious theory of desire, expanding scholarly understanding of sexuality in the past to include forgotten, ambivalent, and challenging forms of pleasure."—Holly Dugan, The George Washington University"An incredibly useful touchstone for queer studies."—Modern Philology "This powerful book brings important and fresh insight to the literature." —CHOICETable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Reading for Desire1. Getting Used, and Liking It: Erotic Instrumentality and the Go-Between2. Everything That Moves: Promiscuous Fancy and Carnival Longing3. It Takes One to Know One: Paranoid Suspicion and the Witch Hunt4. Lost Worlds, Lost Selves: Queer Colonial MelancholiaConclusion: The Persistence of FancyAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press The Shapes of Fancy: Reading for Queer Desire in
Book SynopsisExploring forms of desire unaccounted for in previous histories of sexuality What can the Renaissance tell us at our present moment about who and what is “queer,” as well as the political consequences of asking? In posing this question, The Shapes of Fancy offers a powerful new method of accounting for ineffable and diffuse forms of desire, mining early modern drama and prose literature to describe new patterns of affective resonance.Starting with the question of how and why readers seek traces of desire in texts from bygone times and places, The Shapes of Fancy demonstrates a practice of critical attunement to the psychic and historical circulations of affect across time within texts, from texts to readers, and among readers. Closely reading for uncharted desires as they recur in early modern drama, witchcraft pamphlets, and early Atlantic voyage narratives and demonstrating how each is structured by qualities of secrecy, impossibility, and excess, Christine Varnado follows four “shapes of fancy”: the desire to be used to others’ ends; indiscriminate, bottomless appetite; paranoid self-fulfilling suspicion; and melancholic longings for impossible transformations and affinities. These affective dynamics go awry in atypical and perverse ways. In other words, argues Varnado, these modes of feeling are recognizable on the page or stage as “queer” because of how, and not by whom, they are expressed.This new theorization of desire expands the notion of queerness in literature, decoupling the literary trace of queerness from the binary logics of same-sex versus opposite-sex and normative versus deviant that have governed early modern sexuality studies. Providing a set of methods for analyzing affect and desire in texts from any period, The Shapes of Fancy stages an impassioned defense of the inherently desirous nature of reading, making a case for readerly investment and identification as vital engines of meaning making and political insight.Trade Review"The Shapes of Fancy pursues an innovative expansion of the lexicon of queer desire. Christine Varnado forges links between early modern and contemporary thinkers, and she engages a constellation of affective modes, from mediation and consumption to paranoia and melancholia. Her supple analyses illuminate the intricate, often unexpected vectors, artifacts, and afterlives of erotic connection."—Kathryn Schwarz, Vanderbilt University"Christine Varnado’s book makes a surprising and incisive intervention into early modern studies. In its queerest moments, The Shapes of Fancy argues for a capacious theory of desire, expanding scholarly understanding of sexuality in the past to include forgotten, ambivalent, and challenging forms of pleasure."—Holly Dugan, The George Washington University"An incredibly useful touchstone for queer studies."—Modern Philology "This powerful book brings important and fresh insight to the literature." —CHOICETable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Reading for Desire1. Getting Used, and Liking It: Erotic Instrumentality and the Go-Between2. Everything That Moves: Promiscuous Fancy and Carnival Longing3. It Takes One to Know One: Paranoid Suspicion and the Witch Hunt4. Lost Worlds, Lost Selves: Queer Colonial MelancholiaConclusion: The Persistence of FancyAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press Lesbian Death: Desire and Danger between Feminist
Book SynopsisEngaging with fears of lesbian death to explore the value of lesbian beyond identity The loss of lesbian spaces, as well as ideas of the lesbian as anachronistic has called into question the place of lesbian identity within our current culture. In Lesbian Death, Mairead Sullivan probes the perception that lesbian status is in retreat, exploring the political promises—and especially the failures—of lesbian feminism and its usefulness today. Lesbian Death reads how lesbian is conceptualized in relation to death from the 1970s onward to argue that lesbian offers disruptive potential. Lesbian Death examines the rise of lesbian breast cancer activism in San Francisco in conversation with ACT UP, the lesbian separatist manifestos “The C.L.I.T. Papers,” the enduring specter of lesbian bed death, and the weaponization of lesbian identity against trans lives. By situating the lesbian as a border figure between feminist and queer, Lesbian Death offers a fresh perspective on the value of lesbian for both feminist and queer projects, even if her value is her death. Trade Review "Mairead Sullivan’s refreshing book delves deeply into the decades-long dynamic in which the lesbian—as figure, identity, and political project—is somehow always already dying even as younger and older generations infuse the lesbian with new and vital promise. Analyzing fears of lesbian death registered in narratives of loss, aggression, murderousness, bed death, and so many wars (sex wars, theory wars, butch-fem border wars, intersectionality wars, and TERF wars), this engaging work trenchantly illuminates the disruptive potential and undeniable persistence of the lesbian at the heart of the often-tense relations among feminist, queer, and trans articulations of community."—Finn Enke, author of Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism "Lesbian Death is a thoroughgoing analysis of the work of ‘the lesbian’—especially tales of her imminent demise—in discourse and culture. Neither romanticized nor maligned, here, the figure of the lesbian is vital to queer/trans/feminist world-making. A generous and generative contribution to queer and lesbian studies, Mairead Sullivan’s treatment is timely and inspired."—Angela Willey, author of Undoing Monogamy: The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology "A compelling and timely book to think with, especially for those of us invested in building more just feminist, queer, trans, and lesbian worlds, whatever language we use to do so."—Autostraddle
£74.40
University of Minnesota Press Visibility Interrupted: Rural Queer Life and the
Book SynopsisA questioning of the belief in the power of LGBTQ visibility through the lives of queer women in the rural Midwest Today most LGBTQ rights supporters take for granted the virtue of being “out, loud, and proud.” Most also assume that it would be terrible to be LGBTQ in a rural place. By considering moments in which queerness and rurality come into contact, Visibility Interrupted argues that both positions are wrong. In the first monograph on LGBTQ women in the rural Midwest, Carly Thomsen deconstructs the image of the rural as a flat, homogenous, and anachronistic place where LGBTQ people necessarily suffer. And she suggests that visibility is not liberation and will not lead to liberation. Far from being an unambiguous good, argues Thomsen, visibility politics can, in fact, preclude collective action. They also advance metronormativity, postraciality, and capitalism. To make these interventions, Thomsen develops the theory of unbecoming: interrogating the relationship between that which we celebrate and that which we find disdainful—the past, the rural, politics—is crucial for developing alternative subjectivities and politics. Unbecoming precedes becoming. Drawing from critical race studies, disability studies, and queer Marxism, in addition to feminist and queer studies, the insights of this book will be useful to scholars theorizing issues far beyond sexuality and place and to social justice activists who want to move beyond visibility. Trade Review"Carly Thomsen’s Visibility Interrupted is a must-read for any LGBTQ (loving) people who have ever thought that being 'out, loud, and proud' was a good thing. Disclosing how visibility politics emerges out of urban spaces and presumes that the rural is unbecoming, Thomsen goes on to demonstrate what women in rural South Dakota and Minnesota can teach us about LGBTQ politics, the rural, and the relation between the two. Provocative, extensively researched, and delivered in Thomsen’s lively voice, this groundbreaking ‘queer archive’ offers a new understanding of sexuality as spatial and a more capacious politics inspired by LGBTQ rural life."—Rosemary Hennessy, Rice University"Visibility Interrupted advances research and energizes debate in an emergent and under-examined area in LGBTQ studies: queer rurality. Not only does this work critique dominant queer metronormativity in the field, it also critically displaces the strongly masculinist conception of the bucolic and the rustic by focusing on LGBTQ women’s identity formation, world-making processes, and community-building practices in the rural Midwest. Carly Thomsen argues for complicating the queer rural Midwest and queerness in general by offering a critical optic that refuses the flattening of the pastoral and envisions alternative formations of LGBTQ future."—Martin F. Manalansan IV, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities"Despite decades of critique of visibility politics, the rural continues to persist as an inherently oppressive space for queers. This is an energizing read, both as a synthesis of these debates as well as a fresh take on the suturing of LGBTQ visibility to hegemonic constructs of race and capitalism. Uninterested in a politics of inclusion, Carly Thomsen artfully situates visibility as a form of labor—the work of producing and curating oneself inevitably for capitalism and for the state—that is unappealing and unnecessary for her rural lesbian interlocutors. Visibility therefore becomes a political aim that preempts other horizons of political action. Anchored in the growing scholarship on rural queer studies, Visibility Interrupted is also a major contribution to queer and feminist theory, critical race studies, and critical disability studies. The thought-provoking stories of these irreverent lesbians reveal the imaginative paucity at the heart of urban metronormative sexual cultures."—Jasbir K. Puar, Rutgers University "As the first book-length study to focus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) women in the rural Midwest, Thomsen’s Visibility Interrupted identifies and responds to the shortcomings of an LGBTQ activist agenda that views visibility as a foremost catalyst for social change."—Gender & Society"A well-researched, notable addition to the expanding field of rural queer studies. Visibility Interrupted complicates assumptions about metronormativity, successfully demonstrating that LGBTQ people do live in rural settings and enjoy happy, liberated lives far from inferior to those of their urban counterparts. Focusing on LGBTQ women in the Midwest—specifically South Dakota and Minnesota—the book also aids in addressing the dearth of queer studies of women when compared to those of gay men."—ChoiceTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Theorizing Queer Rurality and Calls for LGBTQ Visibility1. Metronormativity as Legacy: The Cases of Matthew Shepard and Jene Newsome2. (Be)coming Out, Be(com)ing Visible3. Post-Race, Post-Space: Calls for Disability and LGBTQ Visibility4. Queer Labors: Visibility and Capitalism5. The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Metronormativity on the Move6. What’s the Use? Queer Critique in MotionAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press Visibility Interrupted: Rural Queer Life and the
Book SynopsisA questioning of the belief in the power of LGBTQ visibility through the lives of queer women in the rural Midwest Today most LGBTQ rights supporters take for granted the virtue of being “out, loud, and proud.” Most also assume that it would be terrible to be LGBTQ in a rural place. By considering moments in which queerness and rurality come into contact, Visibility Interrupted argues that both positions are wrong. In the first monograph on LGBTQ women in the rural Midwest, Carly Thomsen deconstructs the image of the rural as a flat, homogenous, and anachronistic place where LGBTQ people necessarily suffer. And she suggests that visibility is not liberation and will not lead to liberation. Far from being an unambiguous good, argues Thomsen, visibility politics can, in fact, preclude collective action. They also advance metronormativity, postraciality, and capitalism. To make these interventions, Thomsen develops the theory of unbecoming: interrogating the relationship between that which we celebrate and that which we find disdainful—the past, the rural, politics—is crucial for developing alternative subjectivities and politics. Unbecoming precedes becoming. Drawing from critical race studies, disability studies, and queer Marxism, in addition to feminist and queer studies, the insights of this book will be useful to scholars theorizing issues far beyond sexuality and place and to social justice activists who want to move beyond visibility. Trade Review"Carly Thomsen’s Visibility Interrupted is a must-read for any LGBTQ (loving) people who have ever thought that being 'out, loud, and proud' was a good thing. Disclosing how visibility politics emerges out of urban spaces and presumes that the rural is unbecoming, Thomsen goes on to demonstrate what women in rural South Dakota and Minnesota can teach us about LGBTQ politics, the rural, and the relation between the two. Provocative, extensively researched, and delivered in Thomsen’s lively voice, this groundbreaking ‘queer archive’ offers a new understanding of sexuality as spatial and a more capacious politics inspired by LGBTQ rural life."—Rosemary Hennessy, Rice University"Visibility Interrupted advances research and energizes debate in an emergent and under-examined area in LGBTQ studies: queer rurality. Not only does this work critique dominant queer metronormativity in the field, it also critically displaces the strongly masculinist conception of the bucolic and the rustic by focusing on LGBTQ women’s identity formation, world-making processes, and community-building practices in the rural Midwest. Carly Thomsen argues for complicating the queer rural Midwest and queerness in general by offering a critical optic that refuses the flattening of the pastoral and envisions alternative formations of LGBTQ future."—Martin F. Manalansan IV, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities"Despite decades of critique of visibility politics, the rural continues to persist as an inherently oppressive space for queers. This is an energizing read, both as a synthesis of these debates as well as a fresh take on the suturing of LGBTQ visibility to hegemonic constructs of race and capitalism. Uninterested in a politics of inclusion, Carly Thomsen artfully situates visibility as a form of labor—the work of producing and curating oneself inevitably for capitalism and for the state—that is unappealing and unnecessary for her rural lesbian interlocutors. Visibility therefore becomes a political aim that preempts other horizons of political action. Anchored in the growing scholarship on rural queer studies, Visibility Interrupted is also a major contribution to queer and feminist theory, critical race studies, and critical disability studies. The thought-provoking stories of these irreverent lesbians reveal the imaginative paucity at the heart of urban metronormative sexual cultures."—Jasbir K. Puar, Rutgers University "As the first book-length study to focus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) women in the rural Midwest, Thomsen’s Visibility Interrupted identifies and responds to the shortcomings of an LGBTQ activist agenda that views visibility as a foremost catalyst for social change."—Gender & Society"A well-researched, notable addition to the expanding field of rural queer studies. Visibility Interrupted complicates assumptions about metronormativity, successfully demonstrating that LGBTQ people do live in rural settings and enjoy happy, liberated lives far from inferior to those of their urban counterparts. Focusing on LGBTQ women in the Midwest—specifically South Dakota and Minnesota—the book also aids in addressing the dearth of queer studies of women when compared to those of gay men."—ChoiceTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Theorizing Queer Rurality and Calls for LGBTQ Visibility1. Metronormativity as Legacy: The Cases of Matthew Shepard and Jene Newsome2. (Be)coming Out, Be(com)ing Visible3. Post-Race, Post-Space: Calls for Disability and LGBTQ Visibility4. Queer Labors: Visibility and Capitalism5. The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Metronormativity on the Move6. What’s the Use? Queer Critique in MotionAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£19.79
University of Minnesota Press The Poetics of Cruising: Queer Visual Culture
Book SynopsisA groundbreaking new history of urban cruising through the lenses of urban poets The Poetics of Cruising explores the relationship between cruising, photography, and the visual in the work of leading poets, from Walt Whitman in the nineteenth century to Eileen Myles in the twenty-first. What is it that happens, asks Jack Parlett, and what is it that is sought, in this often transient moment of perception we call cruising, this perceptual arena where acts of looking between strangers are intensified and eroticized? Parlett believes that this moment is not only optical in nature but visual: a mode of looking that warrants comparison with the ways in which we behold still and moving images. Whether it’s Whitman’s fixation with daguerreotypes, Langston Hughes’s hybrid photographic works, or Frank O’Hara’s love of Hollywood movie stars, argues Parlett, the history of poets cruising abounds with this intermingling between the verbal and the visual, the passing and the fixed. To look at someone in the act of cruising, this history suggests, is to capture, consider, and aestheticize, amid the flux and instantaneity of urban time. But it is also to reveal the ambivalence at the heart of this erotic search, where power may be unevenly distributed across glances, and gendered and racialized bodies are marked. Thus, in identifying for the first time this confluence of cruising, poetry, and visual culture, Parlett concludes that the visual erotic economy associated with gay cruising today, exemplified by the photographic grid of an app like Grindr, is not a uniquely contemporary phenomenon. Innovative, astute, and highly readable, and drawing on compelling archival material, The Poetics of Cruising is a must for scholars of queer and LGBTQ literature and culture, modern and contemporary poetry, visual studies, and the history of sexuality.Trade Review"The Poetics of Cruising is a thoughtfully researched and rigorous examination of the literary pleasures of sex in public across two centuries. Jack Parlett examines the poetics and politics of cruising, a queerly ekphrastic practice, at the intersections of gender, race, and class. Moving between past and present, words and images, close reading and close looking, The Poetics of Cruising explores the enduring appeal of cruising without nostalgia."—Fiona Anderson, author of Cruising the Dead River: David Wojnarowicz and New York’s Ruined Waterfront"The Poetics of Cruising is an innovative, astute, and highly readable account of the intersections of gay life, visuality, and poetics in the work of important gay writers from Walt Whitman to David Wojnarowicz. Analyzing unpublished materials alongside literary texts, The Poetics of Cruising—a model of how to combine history, theory, and close reading—is a fascinating and beautifully written account of cruising as a practice, aesthetic, and methodology."—Christopher Castiglia, Pennsylvania State UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: A Look1. Passing Strangers2. Walt Whitman, Looking at You3. Looking for Langston Hughes4. Frank O’Hara’s Moving Pictures5. David Wojnarowicz’s PortraitsCoda: A ClickAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£77.60
Bristol University Press Queering Criminology in Theory and Praxis:
Book SynopsisThis accessible book introduces the key concepts and theoretical developments of queer criminology and explains what they mean for modern criminal justice frameworks and practitioners. The book sets out experiences of the LGBTQ+ population as victims, offenders and professionals in legal systems in the US and internationally and explores what they mean for elements of those systems including police, courts, corrections and victims’ services. It is both a useful reference point for academics, students and professionals and a guide to how queer criminology can be theoretically applied and practically implemented in the worlds of policing, courts, corrections, and victims' services.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Towards Freedom, Empowerment, and Agency: An Introduction to Queering Criminology in Theory and Praxis: Reimaging Justice in the Criminal Legal System and Beyond – Carrie L. Buist and Lindsay Kahle Semprevivo 1. Gender- and Sexuality-Based Violence Among LGBTQ People: An Empirical Test of Norm-Centered Stigma Theory – Meredith G.F. Worthen 2. Queer Pathways – Michael K. Winters 3. Queer Criminology and the Destabilization of Child Sexual Abuse – Dave McDonald 4. Queer(y)ing the Experiences of LGBTQ Workers in Criminal Processing Systems – Angela Dwyer and Roddrick A. Colvin 5. ‘PREA Is a Joke’: A Case Study of How Trans PREA Standards Are(n’t) Enforced – April Carrillo 6. Queerly Navigating the System: Trans* Experiences Under State Surveillance – Rayna E. Momen 7. Sex-Gender Defining Laws, Birth Certificates, and Identity – Jon Rosenstadt 8. Effects of Intimate Partner Violence in the LGBTQ Community: A. Systematic Review – Illandra Denysschen and Rosalind Evans 9. Health Covariates of Intimate Partner Violence in a National Transgender Sample – Victoria Kurdyla, Adam M. Messinger, and Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz 10. Serving Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, and Intersex Youth in Alameda County’s Juvenile Hall – Alexandria Garcia, Naseem Badiey, Laura Agnich Chavez, and Wendy Still 11. Liberating Black Youth Across the Gender Spectrum Through the Deconstruction of the White Femininity/Black Masculinity Duality – Angela Irvine-Baker, Aisha Canfield, and Carolyn Reyes 12. ‘I Thought They Were Supposed to Be on My Side’: What Jane Doe’s Experience Teaches Us About Institutional Harm Against Trans Youth – Vanessa R. Panfil and Aimee Wodda 13. The Role of Adolescent Friendship Networks in Queer Youth’s Delinquency – Nayan G. Ramirez 14. ‘At the Very Least’: Politics and Praxis of Bail Fund Organizers and the Potential for Queer Liberation – Luca Suede Connolly and Rose M. Buckelew 15. A Conspiracy – Lucilla R. Harrell and S. Page Dukes 16. LGBTQ+ Homelessness: Resource Obtainment and Issues With Shelters – Trye Mica Price and Tusty ten Bensel 17. The Color of Queer Theory in Social Work and Criminology Practice: A World Without Empathy – Rebecca S. Katz 18. Camouflaged: Tackling the Invisibility of LGBTQ+ Veterans When Accessing Care – Shanna N. Felix and Chrystina Y. Hoffman 19. Barriers to Reporting, Barriers to Services: Challenges for Transgender Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Victimization – Danielle C. Slakoff and Jaclyn A. Siegel Conclusion: What Does It Mean to Do Justice? Current and Future Directions in Queer Criminological Research and Practice – Lindsay Kahle Semprevivo and Carrie L. Buist
£25.64
Bristol University Press Queer Politics in Contemporary Turkey
Book SynopsisDrawing on the words and stories of queer Turkish activists, this book aims to unravel the complexities of queer lives in Turkey. In doing so, it challenges dominant conceptualizations of the queer Turkish experience within critical security discourses. The book argues that while queer Turks are subjected to ceaseless forms of insecurity in their governance, opportunities for emancipatory resistance have emerged alongside these abuses. It identifies the ways in which the state, the family, Turkish Islam and other socially-mediated processes and agencies can expose or protect queers from violence in the Turkish community.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Ambiguities of Queer Research 2. Turkish Governmentality: A Genealogy of Heteropatriarchal Nationalism 3. Assembling Turkish Queers 4. Assembing Trans Identity 5. The Queer Common Conclusion
£76.00
Bristol University Press The Gentrification of Queer Activism: Diversity
Book SynopsisIn the 2010s, London’s LGBTQ+ scene was hit by extensive venue closures. For some, this represented the increased inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in society. For others, it threatened the city’s status as a ‘global beacon of diversity’ or merely reaffirmed the hostility of London’s neoliberal landscapes. Navigating these competing realities, Olimpia Burchiellaro explores the queer politics of LGBTQ+ inclusion in London. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted with activists, professionals and LGBTQ-friendly businesses, the author reveals how gender and sexuality come to be reconfigured in the production and consumption of LGBTQ+ inclusion and its promises. Giving voice to queer perspectives on inclusion, this is an important contribution to our understanding of urban policy, nightlife, neoliberalism and LGBTQ+ politics.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Between Corporate Inclusivity and the Closure of Queer Spaces: The Neoliberal Politics of Inclusion in East London 2. Coming Out for Business: Lesbian Tech CEOs and the CEO-ization of Queer Politics 3. Diversity Work and Queer Value: Putting Queer Differences to Work in the LGBTQ-friendly Corporation 4. The Straightening Tendencies of Inclusion: The Friends of the Joiners Arms and the Normativities of Gentrification 5. As Soon as this Pub Closes: The Temporalities of Gentrification and Other Queer Utopias 6. Conclusion
£72.00
Fordham University Press Boy with the Bullhorn: A Memoir and History of
Book SynopsisWinner, "Gold" Independent Publishing Award (IPPY) for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction Winner, The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, 34th Annual Triangle Awards 2023 Lammy Finalist, Gay Memoir/Biography A coming-of-age memoir of life on the front lines of the AIDS crisis with ACT UP New York. From the moment Ron Goldberg stumbled into his first ACT UP meeting in June 1987, the AIDS activist organization became his life. For the next eight years, he chaired committees, planned protests, led teach-ins, and facilitated their Monday night meetings. He cruised and celebrated at ACT UP parties, attended far too many AIDS memorials, and participated in more than a hundred zaps and demonstrations, becoming the group’s unofficial “Chant Queen,” writing and leading chants for many of their major actions. Boy with the Bullhorn is both a memoir and an immersive history of the original New York chapter of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, from 1987 to 1995, told with great humor, heart, and insight. Using the author’s own story, “the activist education of a well-intentioned, if somewhat naïve nice gay Jewish theater queen,” Boy with the Bullhorn intertwines Goldberg’s experiences with the larger chronological history of ACT UP, the grassroots AIDS activist organization that confronted politicians, scientists, drug companies, religious leaders, the media, and an often uncaring public to successfully change the course of the AIDS epidemic. Diligently sourced and researched, Boy with the Bullhorn provides both an intimate look into how activist strategies are developed and deployed and a snapshot of life in New York City during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic. On the occasions where Goldberg writes outside his personal experience, he relies on his extensive archive of original ACT UP documents, news articles, and other published material, as well as activist videos and oral histories, to help flesh out actions, events, and the background stories of key activists. Writing with great candor, Goldberg examines the group’s triumphs and failures, as well as the pressures and bad behaviors that eventually tore ACT UP apart. A story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, from engaging in outrageous, media-savvy demonstrations, to navigating the intricacies of drug research and the byzantine bureaucracies of the FDA, NIH, and CDC, Boy with the Bullhorn captures the passion, smarts, and evanescent spirit of ACT UP—the anger, grief, and desperation, but also the joy, camaraderie, and sexy, campy playfulness—and the exhilarating adrenaline rush of activism.Table of ContentsPreface | ix Part I: Becoming an Activist 1 Awakening | 3 2 First Steps | 22 3 Welcome to ACT UP | 38 4 We Are Family | 52 Part II: Expanding the Agenda 5 ACT NOW and the Nine Days of Rain | 67 6 Taking Actions | 83 7 Summer Awakening | 97 8 Seize Control of the FDA | 117 Part III: Crashing Through 9 Targeting City Hall | 141 10 Storming the Ivory Tower | 163 11 Remember Stonewall Was a Riot | 179 12 Parallel Tracks | 192 13 Heading Inside | 211 14 Stop the Church | 222 Part IV: The Gorgeous Mosaic 15 The Myers Mess | 235 16 Time’s Up, Mario! | 248 17 Storm the NIH | 256 18 Inside or Out | 266 19 Can the Center Hold? | 280 20 Bombs Are Dropping | 301 Part V: Days of Desperation 21 Desperate Measures | 317 22 Splitting Differences | 333 23 Target Bush | 351 24 Strategies and Consequences | 370 Part VI: AIDS Campaign ’92 25 ACT UP / Petrelis | 383 26 The In-Your-Face Primary | 394 27 Unconventional Behavior | 402 28 Vote as If Your Life Depended on It | 417 Afterword | 437 Acknowledgments | 443 Notes | 449 Index | 483 Photographs follow page 214
£55.52
University of Arkansas Press Arkansas and the Queer South
Book SynopsisThe Un-Natural State is a one-of-a-kind study of gay and lesbian life in Arkansas in the twentieth century, a deft weaving together of Arkansas history, dozens of oral histories, and Brock Thompson's own story. Thompson analyzes the meaning of rural drag shows, including a compelling description of a 1930s seasonal beauty pageant in Wilson, Arkansas, where white men in drag shared the stage with other white men in blackface, a suggestive mingling that went to the core of both racial transgression and sexual disobedience. These small town entertainments put on in churches and schools emerged decades later in gay bars across the state as a lucrative business practice and a larger means of community expression, while in the same period the state's sodomy law was rewritten to condemn sexual acts between those of the same sex in language similar to what was once used to denounce interracial sex. Thompson goes on to describe several lesbian communities established in the Ozark Mountains during the sixties and seventies and offers a substantial account of Eureka Springs's informal status as the "gay capital of the Ozarks." Through this exploration of identity formation, group articulation, political mobilization, and cultural visibility within the context of historical episodes such as the Second World War, the civil rights movement, and the AIDS epidemic,The Un-Natural State contributes not only to our understanding of gay and lesbian history but also to our understanding of the South.
£31.30
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Coming Out of Feminism?
Book SynopsisHas Queer Theory 'grown out' of Feminism - in both senses? If it has, is that process a coming-out story?Table of ContentsList of Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Sexualities without Genders and other Queer Utopias: Biddy Martin. 2. Sexual Traffic: Gayle Rubin (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Judith Butler (University of California, Berkeley). 3. Sissies and Sisters: Gender, Sexuality and the Possibilities of Coalition: William Spurlin (Columbia University). 4. Reflections on Gynophobia: Emily Apter (UCLA). 5. Mother, Can't You See I'm Burning? Between Female Homosexuality and Homosociality in Radclyffe Hall's The Unlit Lamp: Trevor Hope (University of Rochester). 6. Desiring Machines? Queer Re-visions of Feminist Film Theory: Carole-Anne Tyler (University of California, Riverside). 7. André Gide and the Niece's Seduction: Naomi Segal (University of Reading). 8. Savage Nights: Mandy Merck. 9. Coming Out of the Real: Knots and Queries: Elizabeth Wright (Girton College, Cambridge). Index.
£107.30
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Coming Out of Feminism?
Book SynopsisHas Queer Theory 'grown out' of Feminism - in both senses? If it has, is that process a coming-out story?Table of ContentsList of Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Sexualities without Genders and other Queer Utopias: Biddy Martin. 2. Sexual Traffic: Gayle Rubin (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Judith Butler (University of California, Berkeley). 3. Sissies and Sisters: Gender, Sexuality and the Possibilities of Coalition: William Spurlin (Columbia University). 4. Reflections on Gynophobia: Emily Apter (UCLA). 5. Mother, Can't You See I'm Burning? Between Female Homosexuality and Homosociality in Radclyffe Hall's The Unlit Lamp: Trevor Hope (University of Rochester). 6. Desiring Machines? Queer Re-visions of Feminist Film Theory: Carole-Anne Tyler (University of California, Riverside). 7. André Gide and the Niece's Seduction: Naomi Segal (University of Reading). 8. Savage Nights: Mandy Merck. 9. Coming Out of the Real: Knots and Queries: Elizabeth Wright (Girton College, Cambridge). Index.
£52.20
University of Massachusetts Press An Army of Ex-lovers: My Life at the Gay
Book SynopsisThis is a vivid, funny portrait of the four tumultuous years a young editor spent working in the gay press. Boston's weekly ""Gay Community News"" was ""the center of the universe"" during the late 1970s, writes Amy Hoffman in this memoir of gay liberation before AIDS, before gay weddings, and before The L Word. Provocative, informative, inspiring, and absurd, with a small circulation but a huge influence, ""Gay Community News"" produced a generation of leaders, writers, and friends. In addition to capturing the heady atmosphere of the times - the victories, controversies, and tragedies - Hoffman's memoir is also her personal story, written with wit and insight, of growing up in a political movement; of her deepening relationships with charismatic, talented, and sometimes utterly weird coworkers; and of trying to explain it all to her large Jewish family.Trade ReviewFunny, engaging, enlightening, heart-breaking: a history of the heart that will touch everyone who reads it. - Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent ""Amy Hoffman has written a fabulous memoir of post-Stonewall lesbian and gay liberation. The book captures the radical political spirit of the 1970s, conjuring up a world of men, women, and differently gender-configured activists who sought to foment a revolution to end capitalism, racism, homophobia, and sexism all the while putting out a weekly newspaper.... This is memoir at its best."" - Janice Irvine, author of Disorders of Desire ""Part social history, part personal memoir, and part off-beat love story. Amy Hoffman writes with so much charm and wit that this portrait of a group of political radicals trying to change the world becomes an endearing and completely accessible tribute to the power of community and the importance of convictions. There is something to love, admire, and laugh about on every page of this book. I hated to see it end."" - Stephen McCauley, author of The Object of My Affection ""An Army of Ex-Lovers is Amy Hoffman's witty, nuanced, personal history of Gay Community News, Boston's gay weekly newspaper in the 1970s and '80s. I expected as much from this fine writer. What is delightfully unexpected is that it is also the love story between a gay man and a lesbian. Political, cranky, fully committed, loyal, and loud. It's big love. It's the untold story of those early years of gay liberation."" - Kate Clinton, author of Don't Get Me Started
£19.76