Social Text 84-85: What's Queer about Queer Studies Now?

by David L. Eng, J. Jack Halberstam (Editor), José Esteban Muñoz (Editor)

This special double issue of Social Text reassesses the political utility of the term queer . The mainstreaming of gay and lesbian identity—as a mass-mediated consumer lifestyle and an embattled legal category—demands a renewal of queer studies that also considers the global crises of the late twentieth century. These crises, which are shaping national manifestations of sexual, racial, and gendered hierarchies, include the ascendance and triumph of neoliberalism; the clash of religious fundamentalisms, nationalisms, and patriotisms; and the return to “moral values” and “family values” as deterrents to political debate, economic redistribution, and cultural dissent. In sixteen timely essays, the contributors map out an urgent intellectual and political terrain for queer studies and the contemporary politics of identity, family, and kinship. Collectively, these essays examine the limits of queer epistemology, the potentials of queer diasporas, and the emergence of queer liberalism. They rethink queer critique in relation to the war on terrorism and the escalation of U.S. imperialism; the devolution of civil rights and the rise of the prison-industrial complex; the continued dismantling of the welfare state; the recoding of freedom in terms of secularization, domesticity, and marriage; and the politics of citizenship, migration, and asylum in a putatively postracial and postidentity age.

Contributors . Michael Cobb, David L. Eng, Roderick A. Ferguson, Elizabeth Freeman, Gayatri Gopinath, Judith Halberstam, Janet R. Jakobsen, Joon Oluchi Lee, Martin F. Manalansan IV, José Esteban Muñoz, Tavia Nyong’o, Hiram Perez, Jasbir K. Puar, Chandan Reddy, Teemu Ruskola, Nayan Shah, Karen Tongson, Amy Villarejo

Genres: Queer, Queer Studies, Nonfiction, Gender and Sexuality

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

David L. Eng is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and also a member of the Asian American Studies Program.

Reviews

[Matt Sautman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection is starting to show its age in a post-legalization of gay/lesbian marriage, but the intersectional approach taken here remains significant as whiteness in queer representation is still dominant in American culture. Essays that became chapters in books like Elizabeth Freeman’s Time Binds and Jasbir K. Puar’s Terrorist’s Assemblages are published here, making this issue of Social Text perhaps best suited for graduate students who are just beginning to encounter these theorists.

[Minh-Ha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the direction that cultural criticism should be going in! See especially the Introduction and Jasbir Puar's essay.

[Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is an amazing selection of essays and responses to the gay shame conference at Ann Arbor a few years ago. Check out Hiram Perez! WHere is Hiram Perez?