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An essential anthology of leading academics, activists, and artists on the state of queer studies today.
The David R. Kessler Lectures, established in 1992 by CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies at the City University of New York, represent the cutting edge of queer studies in the United States. Queer Then and Now collects the lectures given from 2002 to 2020 by some of the most influential scholars, artists, and activists of the last two decades—Adrienne Rich, Amber Hollibaugh, Cathy J. Cohen, Cheryl Clarke, Dean Spade, Douglas Crimp, Gayle Rubin, Isaac Julien, Jasbir K. Puar, Jonathan Ned Katz, Martin Duberman, Richard Fung, Roderick A. Ferguson, Sara Ahmed, Sarah Schulman, Susan Stryker, and Urvashi Vaid—alongside new reflections and two scholarly roundtables.
Diverse and dynamic, these lectures and intertextual conversations tackle some of today’s most important interventions from the margins—including the growth of trans studies, the synergy and disconnect between theory and activism, the role of LGBTQ+ art and media, and the challenge of transnational and postcolonial theory. Charting the intellectual development of queer studies after the 1990s, Queer Then and Now lays the groundwork for queer thinking in the twenty-first century and beyond.
Praise for Queen Then and Now
“Queer Then and Now is the balm we need to remind us in this moment that we must always stay vigilant against white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, and fake moral panic. For as the lectures collected here index, every iterative “turn” in queer studies has emerged to address the multiple assaults on queer liberation. Chronicling the past twenty years of scholarship and activism, this volume is an essential addition to the queer studies archive.” —E. Patrick Johnson, author of Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women
“A startlingly relevant collection of essays from cutting-edge queer thinkers and activists, Queer Then and Now combines a deep archive with trenchant reflections on what it means to seek justice, foster community, and shed the shackles of respectability in our unfolding present. By enlarging who and what constitutes queer, this series of diverse provocations invites us to fight for better ways of living.” —Amber Jamilla Musser, author of Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance
The Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS), located at the City University of New York, Graduate Center, was founded in 1991 and is the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of vital concern to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals and communities.
Debanuj DasGupta is assistant professor of feminist studies at University of California at Santa Barbara. Debanuj’s research and teaching focuses on racialized regulation of space, immigration detention, queer migrations and the global governance of migration, sexuality, and HIV.
Joseph Donica is associate professor of English at Bronx Community College, CUNY. His research and teaching focus on Arab-American literature, urban studies, the history of technology, the legal and ethical framework of US citizenship, and queer diasporic literatures of the Middle East and North Africa.
Margot Weiss is associate professor of American studies and anthropology at Wesleyan University, where she established and directs the cluster in Queer Studies and is affiliated with Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on the relationship between queer sexual cultures and US neoliberal capitalism.
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Queer Ideas, Messy Archives, and the Then and Now of Queer Studies
Chapter 1: 2002: Jonathan Ned Katz, Making Sex History: Obsessions of a Quarter Century
Chapter 2: 2003: Gayle Rubin, Geologies of Queer Studies: It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again
Chapter 3: 2004: Isaac Julien, Cinematic Rearticulations
Chapter 4: 2005: Carole Vance, Travels With Sex
Chapter 5: 2006: Adrienne Rich, Candidates for my Love: Three Gay and Lesbian Poets
Chapter 6: 2007: Douglas Crimp, Action Around the Edges
Chapter 7: 2008: Susan Stryker, Ghost Dances: A Trans-movement Manifesto
Chapter 8: 2009: Sarah Schulman, Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences
Chapter 9: 2010: Urvashi Vaid, What Can Brown Do For You?: Race, Sexuality and the Future of LGBT Politics
Chapter 10: Queer Then and Now Roundtable: Histories of Queer and Trans Activism
Chapter 11: 2012: Martin Duberman, Acceptance at What Price?: The Gay Movement Reconsidered
Chapter 12: 2013: Cheryl Clarke, Queer Black Trouble: In Life, Literature, and the Age of Obama
Chapter 13: 2014: Cathy J. Cohen, #DoBlackLivesMatter? From Michael Brown to CeCe McDonald
Chapter 14: 2015: Richard Fung, Re-Orientations: Shift and continuities in Asian Canadian queer and trans identities and activism
Chapter 15: 2016: Dean Spade, When We Win We Lose: Mainstreaming and the Redistribution of Respectability
Chapter 16: 2017: Sara Ahmed, Queer Use 2
Chapter 17: 2018: Amber Hollibaugh, Hope and the Power of Desire: Our Vision for Changing the World
Chapter 18: 2019: Jasbir Puar, A No-State “Solution”: Inter/nationalism and the Question of Queer Theory
Chapter 19: 2020: Roderick Ferguson, Queer and Trans Liberation and the Critique of Fascism, or when S.T.A.R. Met Césaire and the Frankfurt School
Chapter 20: Queer Then and Now Roundtable: Histories of Queer and Trans Scholarship