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Queer as Camp: Essays on Summer, Style, and Sexuality
To camp means to occupy a place and/or time provisionally or under special circumstances. To camp can also mean to queer. And for many children and young adults, summer camp is a formative experience mixed with homosocial structure and homoerotic longing. In Queer as Camp, editors Kenneth B. Kidd and Derritt Mason curate a collection of essays and critical memoirs exploring the intersections of "queer" and "camp," focusing especially on camp as an alternative and potentially nonnormative place and/or time.
Exploring questions of identity, desire, and social formation, Queer as Camp delves into the diverse and queer-enabling dimensions of particular camp/sites, from more traditional iterations to camp-like ventures as well as literary and filmic texts about camp across a range of genres (fantasy, horror, realistic fiction, graphic novels) as well as the notorious appropriation of indigenous life and the consequences of "playing Indian."
These accessible, engaging essays examine, variously, camp as a queer place and/or the experiences of queers at camp, including Vermont's Indian Brook, a single-sex girls' camp that has struggled with the inclusion of nonbinary and transgender campers and staff; the role ofJewish summer camp as a complicated site of sexuality, social bonding, and citizen-making as well as potentially if not routinely queer-affirming place. They also attend more to cinematic and literary representations of camp, such as the Eisner award-winning comic series Lumberjanes, which revitalizes and revises the century-old scouting girl genre of popular fiction;Disney's Paul Bunyan, a short film that plays up male homosociality and cross-species bonding while inviting queer identification in the process; Sleepaway Camp, a story that exposes and deconstructs anxieties about the gendered body; and Wes Anderson's critically acclaimed Moonrise Kingdom, which makes the familiar look different and opens the possibility of arriving at a better place.
Highly interdisciplinary in scope, Queer as Camp reflects on camp and Camp with candor, insight, and often humor.
Contributors: Kyle Eveleth, D. Gilson, Charlie Hailey, Ana M. Jimenez-Moreno, Kathryn R. Kent, Mark Lipton, Kerry Mallan, Chris McGee, Roderick McGillis, Tammy Mielke, Alexis Mitchell, Flavia Musinsky, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Annebella Pollen, Andrew J. Trevarrow, Paul Venzo, Joshua Whitehead
Exploring questions of identity, desire, and social formation, Queer as Camp delves into the diverse and queer-enabling dimensions of particular camp/sites, from more traditional iterations to camp-like ventures as well as literary and filmic texts about camp across a range of genres (fantasy, horror, realistic fiction, graphic novels) as well as the notorious appropriation of indigenous life and the consequences of "playing Indian."
These accessible, engaging essays examine, variously, camp as a queer place and/or the experiences of queers at camp, including Vermont's Indian Brook, a single-sex girls' camp that has struggled with the inclusion of nonbinary and transgender campers and staff; the role ofJewish summer camp as a complicated site of sexuality, social bonding, and citizen-making as well as potentially if not routinely queer-affirming place. They also attend more to cinematic and literary representations of camp, such as the Eisner award-winning comic series Lumberjanes, which revitalizes and revises the century-old scouting girl genre of popular fiction;Disney's Paul Bunyan, a short film that plays up male homosociality and cross-species bonding while inviting queer identification in the process; Sleepaway Camp, a story that exposes and deconstructs anxieties about the gendered body; and Wes Anderson's critically acclaimed Moonrise Kingdom, which makes the familiar look different and opens the possibility of arriving at a better place.
Highly interdisciplinary in scope, Queer as Camp reflects on camp and Camp with candor, insight, and often humor.
Contributors: Kyle Eveleth, D. Gilson, Charlie Hailey, Ana M. Jimenez-Moreno, Kathryn R. Kent, Mark Lipton, Kerry Mallan, Chris McGee, Roderick McGillis, Tammy Mielke, Alexis Mitchell, Flavia Musinsky, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Annebella Pollen, Andrew J. Trevarrow, Paul Venzo, Joshua Whitehead
256 pages, Paperback
First published May 21, 2019
2 people are currently reading
344 people want to read
About the author
Joshua Whitehead
8 books854 followersJoshua Whitehead is an Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit storyteller and academic from Peguis First Nation on Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba. He is currently working toward a Ph.D. in Indigenous literatures and cultures at the University of Calgary on Treaty 7 territory. His most recent book of poetry, Full-Metal Indigiqueer, was shortlisted for the 2017 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. In 2016, his poem “mihkokwaniy” won Canada’s History Award for Aboriginal Arts and Stories (for writers aged 19–29), which included a residency at the Banff Centre. He has been published widely in Canadian literary magazines such as Prairie Fire, EVENT, Arc Poetry Magazine, CV2, Red Rising Magazine, and Geez Magazine’s Decolonization issue.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 19, 2021
A book about queer camp(s) - people, we've reached peak pun level! And Joshua Whitehead writes the final essay, and of course it's great great great.
June 27, 2024
The Publisher Says: To camp means to occupy a place and/or time provisionally or under special circumstances. To camp can also mean to queer. And for many children and young adults, summer camp is a formative experience mixed with homosocial structure and homoerotic longing. In Queer as Camp, editors Kenneth B. Kidd and Derritt Mason curate a collection of essays and critical memoirs exploring the intersections of "queer" and "camp," focusing especially on camp as an alternative and potentially nonnormative place and/or time.
Exploring questions of identity, desire, and social formation, Queer as Camp delves into the diverse and queer-enabling dimensions of particular camp/sites, from traditional iterations of camp to camp-like ventures, literary and filmic texts about camp across a range of genres (fantasy, horror, realistic fiction, graphic novels), as well as the notorious appropriation of Indigenous life and the consequences of "playing Indian."
These accessible, engaging essays examine, variously, camp as a queer place and/or the experiences of queers at camp, including Vermont's Indian Brook, a single-sex girls' camp that has struggled with the inclusion of nonbinary and transgender campers and staff; the role of Jewish summer camp as a complicated site of sexuality, social bonding, and citizen-making as well as a potentially if not routinely queer-affirming place. They also attend to cinematic and literary representations of camp, such as the Eisner award-winning comic series Lumberjanes, which revitalizes and revises the century-old Girl Scout story; Disney's Paul Bunyan, a short film that plays up male homosociality and cross-species bonding while inviting queer identification in the process; Sleepaway Camp, a horror film that exposes and deconstructs anxieties about the gendered body; and Wes Anderson's critically acclaimed Moonrise Kingdom, which evokes dreams of escape, transformation, and other ways of being in the world.
Highly interdisciplinary in scope, Queer as Camp reflects on camp and Camp with candor, insight, and often humor.
Contributors: Kyle Eveleth, D. Gilson, Charlie Hailey, Ana M. Jimenez-Moreno, Kathryn R. Kent, Mark Lipton, Kerry Mallan, Chris McGee, Roderick McGillis, Tammy Mielke, Alexis Mitchell, Flavia Musinsky, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Annebella Pollen, Andrew J. Trevarrow, Paul Venzo, Joshua Whitehead
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Camp. One set of four letters, widely divergent meanings to different groups. Don't think these essays, from the queer-studies, and mostly queer, people listed above are in any way insensible of this dichotomy. It gets played with a lot.
One note I'll give you before you even think about reading the collection: Read Sontag's Notes on Camp before you get into these weeds. Everyone herein reproduced has, says so, and/or refers to that work. Besides it's well worth reading just because.
Academocs are famous for writing at each other, Essays and articles in their specialist subjects used a shared vocabulary that most of us do not share. That's certainly true of this collection's contents. Yet I've given it four stars. That's all down to the fact that the essayists have all tied their thoughts either to pop-cultural texts like Mielke and Trevarrow's engrossing "Camping with Walt Disney’s Paul Bunyan: An Essay Short" and Kyle Eveleth's "Striking Camp: Empowerment and Re-Presentation in Lumberjanes", which might be my favorite essay in the whole thing; or to experiences of going to summer camp that I could relate to, like D. Gilson's "Notes on Church Camp" which was a tough read for me.
What I got from this assemblage of academic thought about youthful queerness was the striking, clarifying bolt of insight that I was supposed to feel the exclusion and rejection of camp. It was meant to, designed to, cause this Otherness I knew I had to be thrown (verb not chosen lightly) into high relief. I was *intended* to feel the hostility of my peers so I would buckle down and try to be like them.
Fat chance.
The other reason for a boy like me to go to camp, to be a camper, was to show to the other boys that I was fair game. As long as I failed at their tasks, it was okay to be cruel...it was expected. "Letting the kids sort themselves out" was the way the appalling cruelty of it was sold to parents.
That has never been clearer than after reading these stories of queer camping experiences. I don't know who among the readers of my blog will most likely want to spend the high price of the collection; I hope that, for anyone interested in the subject, their local library will step in and add this to the extant sociology texts, or if you live in an enlightened place, their queer studies collection.
Exploring questions of identity, desire, and social formation, Queer as Camp delves into the diverse and queer-enabling dimensions of particular camp/sites, from traditional iterations of camp to camp-like ventures, literary and filmic texts about camp across a range of genres (fantasy, horror, realistic fiction, graphic novels), as well as the notorious appropriation of Indigenous life and the consequences of "playing Indian."
These accessible, engaging essays examine, variously, camp as a queer place and/or the experiences of queers at camp, including Vermont's Indian Brook, a single-sex girls' camp that has struggled with the inclusion of nonbinary and transgender campers and staff; the role of Jewish summer camp as a complicated site of sexuality, social bonding, and citizen-making as well as a potentially if not routinely queer-affirming place. They also attend to cinematic and literary representations of camp, such as the Eisner award-winning comic series Lumberjanes, which revitalizes and revises the century-old Girl Scout story; Disney's Paul Bunyan, a short film that plays up male homosociality and cross-species bonding while inviting queer identification in the process; Sleepaway Camp, a horror film that exposes and deconstructs anxieties about the gendered body; and Wes Anderson's critically acclaimed Moonrise Kingdom, which evokes dreams of escape, transformation, and other ways of being in the world.
Highly interdisciplinary in scope, Queer as Camp reflects on camp and Camp with candor, insight, and often humor.
Contributors: Kyle Eveleth, D. Gilson, Charlie Hailey, Ana M. Jimenez-Moreno, Kathryn R. Kent, Mark Lipton, Kerry Mallan, Chris McGee, Roderick McGillis, Tammy Mielke, Alexis Mitchell, Flavia Musinsky, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Annebella Pollen, Andrew J. Trevarrow, Paul Venzo, Joshua Whitehead
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Camp. One set of four letters, widely divergent meanings to different groups. Don't think these essays, from the queer-studies, and mostly queer, people listed above are in any way insensible of this dichotomy. It gets played with a lot.
One note I'll give you before you even think about reading the collection: Read Sontag's Notes on Camp before you get into these weeds. Everyone herein reproduced has, says so, and/or refers to that work. Besides it's well worth reading just because.
Academocs are famous for writing at each other, Essays and articles in their specialist subjects used a shared vocabulary that most of us do not share. That's certainly true of this collection's contents. Yet I've given it four stars. That's all down to the fact that the essayists have all tied their thoughts either to pop-cultural texts like Mielke and Trevarrow's engrossing "Camping with Walt Disney’s Paul Bunyan: An Essay Short" and Kyle Eveleth's "Striking Camp: Empowerment and Re-Presentation in Lumberjanes", which might be my favorite essay in the whole thing; or to experiences of going to summer camp that I could relate to, like D. Gilson's "Notes on Church Camp" which was a tough read for me.
What I got from this assemblage of academic thought about youthful queerness was the striking, clarifying bolt of insight that I was supposed to feel the exclusion and rejection of camp. It was meant to, designed to, cause this Otherness I knew I had to be thrown (verb not chosen lightly) into high relief. I was *intended* to feel the hostility of my peers so I would buckle down and try to be like them.
Fat chance.
The other reason for a boy like me to go to camp, to be a camper, was to show to the other boys that I was fair game. As long as I failed at their tasks, it was okay to be cruel...it was expected. "Letting the kids sort themselves out" was the way the appalling cruelty of it was sold to parents.
That has never been clearer than after reading these stories of queer camping experiences. I don't know who among the readers of my blog will most likely want to spend the high price of the collection; I hope that, for anyone interested in the subject, their local library will step in and add this to the extant sociology texts, or if you live in an enlightened place, their queer studies collection.
August 3, 2019
Queer as Camp: Essays on Summer, Style, and Sexuality, edited by Kenneth B Kidd & Derritt Mason, explores the intersection of camp(ing) and sexuality from a broad range of approaches.
Just to start with a disclaimer, I never went to summer camp, not the kind that usually come to mind (cabins in the woods, structured activities, etc), so my engagement with the book is lacking that element. That said, because the essays touch on portrayals of camps and camping in popular culture as well as situations I could relate to from other types of camps, my deprived childhood did not keep me from both enjoying and connecting with the collection. So if you never attended a typical (whatever that might mean) summer camp this book still has a lot to offer.
Like any collection from different writers it is uneven. That probably carries the wrong connotation, the essays don't vary greatly in quality, they vary in who they may appeal to. I was fully engaged with several (to the point of rereading them after a couple days of thinking about what I had read). I found several more quite interesting but not really anything I really connected with. Then there were a few I thought were probably better than I give them credit for, they simply didn't speak to me, no fault of the essay itself. Such is the nature of a broad collection of essays.
There is a fair amount of theory involved but I felt like the writers, for the most part, expressed what they were using in a way that most readers without a lot of theory can still follow the ideas and arguments. Knowing some of the theories does, of course, help with your internal arguing with the writers but isn't necessary to appreciate and understand the majority of the essays.
The area of interest to me involves the intersection of the ages of campgoers (still learning who they are and becoming, hopefully, comfortable with that), the interplay between campers who identify across the sexuality spectrum (for some, a chance to see who they are, through homosocial activity, even if they think they already know), and how other aspects of each person's identity (race, ethnicity, religion, even regional identity) plays into it. This collection touches on these issues, some explicitly and some more peripherally, but always offering new perspectives and approaches.
I think anyone who went to summer camp regularly will enjoy this. Certainly anyone whose interests include gender, sexuality, and group behavior will find a lot to like here.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Just to start with a disclaimer, I never went to summer camp, not the kind that usually come to mind (cabins in the woods, structured activities, etc), so my engagement with the book is lacking that element. That said, because the essays touch on portrayals of camps and camping in popular culture as well as situations I could relate to from other types of camps, my deprived childhood did not keep me from both enjoying and connecting with the collection. So if you never attended a typical (whatever that might mean) summer camp this book still has a lot to offer.
Like any collection from different writers it is uneven. That probably carries the wrong connotation, the essays don't vary greatly in quality, they vary in who they may appeal to. I was fully engaged with several (to the point of rereading them after a couple days of thinking about what I had read). I found several more quite interesting but not really anything I really connected with. Then there were a few I thought were probably better than I give them credit for, they simply didn't speak to me, no fault of the essay itself. Such is the nature of a broad collection of essays.
There is a fair amount of theory involved but I felt like the writers, for the most part, expressed what they were using in a way that most readers without a lot of theory can still follow the ideas and arguments. Knowing some of the theories does, of course, help with your internal arguing with the writers but isn't necessary to appreciate and understand the majority of the essays.
The area of interest to me involves the intersection of the ages of campgoers (still learning who they are and becoming, hopefully, comfortable with that), the interplay between campers who identify across the sexuality spectrum (for some, a chance to see who they are, through homosocial activity, even if they think they already know), and how other aspects of each person's identity (race, ethnicity, religion, even regional identity) plays into it. This collection touches on these issues, some explicitly and some more peripherally, but always offering new perspectives and approaches.
I think anyone who went to summer camp regularly will enjoy this. Certainly anyone whose interests include gender, sexuality, and group behavior will find a lot to like here.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
August 20, 2019
It is often hard to tell with academic books whether they are written in an unnecessarily difficult way, or whether I'm not familiar enough with the theories being referenced. I haven't read Susan Sontag's Notes on Camp, so I'm sure some of the issue was the latter, but it's probably both problems. I enjoyed the explications of different kinds of camps and the messages they send and enforce about gender, and I liked the variety of camps represented. I wasn't as interested in the analyses of movies and books, and I skipped some parts there. I'd say I understood less than half this book.
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August 29, 2021I was really excited by the title but disapponted by how academic the essays were.
May 9, 2020
3.5 stars. Queer as Camp is a niche book for readers. Me. I’m one of those readers. It’s a book where queer readers can see themselves in the stories and contemplate their own camp experiences as well as think critically about camp externally. The essays are superlatively written, and a few require deeper knowledge of queer studies than I have. Yet, the genuineness, complexity, and hilarity make this book a great read for those who have a love/hate relationship with camp. It is difficult to rate this book as some essays were more engaging to me than others (sapphic or religious), but overall as an anthology it provides a good cross section of topics! It may be a good idea to read “Notes on Camp” in it’s entirety now as nearly every author quotes it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews