Why is there no queer international theory?

Over the last decade, Queer Studies have become Global Queer Studies, generating significant insights into key international political processes. Yet, the transformation from Queer to Global Queer has left the discipline of International Relations largely unaffected, which begs the question: if Queer Studies has gone global, why has the discipline of International Relations not gone somewhat queer? Or, to put it in Martin Wight’s provocative terms, why is there no Queer International Theory? This article claims that the presumed non-existence of Queer International Theory is an effect of how the discipline of International Relations combines homologization, figuration, and gentrification to code various types of theory as failures in order to manage the conduct of international theorizing in all its forms. This means there are generalizable lessons to be drawn from how the discipline categorizes Queer International Theory out of existence to bring a specific understanding of International Relations into existence

The foreclosure of the drive queer theories, gender, sex, and the politics of recognition

Siguiendo a Leo Bersani y a Lee Edelman, se podría sostener que, insistiendo en la búsqueda de reconocimiento social por parte de las minorías sexuales, la teoría de la performatividad de género de Judith Butler corre el riesgo de desexualizar la sexualidad. Por otro lado, las así llamadas teorías queer antisociales, en particular las de Edelman, podrían ser consideradas como responsables de despolitizar la política queer, privando a su sujeto de la capacidad de actuar políticamente. El propósito de este artículo es mediar entre estas dos posiciones de la teoría queer sobre el plano de una teoría del sujeto, utilizando la interpretación que Teresa de Lauertis provee acerca del concepto de pulsión.Following Leo Bersani and Lee Edelman, one might say that, by insisting on sexual minorities’ quest for social recognition, Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity runs the risk of desexualizing sexuality. On the other hand, so-called antisocial queer theory, and Edelman in particular, could be held responsible for depoliticizing queer politics, by depriving its subject of political agency. Aim of this article is to mediate between these two positions in queer theory on the level of a theory of the subject, by means of Teresa de Lauretis’ understanding of the concept of the drive

Just as Quare as They Want to Be: A Review of the Black Queer Studies in the Millennium Conference

The latter part of the 20th century has seen the emergence of radical black lesbian feminists and gay men who have begun to address the forces within black culture and the culture at large that have rendered their experiences and sensibilities silent. Theorizing from margin to center, individuals such as Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Essex Hemphill, and Joseph Beam, among others, have undertaken the hard work of creating language and theoretical paradigms, building literal communities, and excavating black history as a means of validating their humanity and longstanding contributions to black cultural formation. In light of this recent artistic and intellectual renaissance, the Black Queer Studies in the Millennium Conference, held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from April 7-9, 2000, marked a moment of profound historical reflection and cultural recalibration. Building upon a legacy of work generated by black transgendered, lesbian, gay and bisexual writers and intellectuals, those black queers who assembled at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill determined to rethink and recalibrate the essential meanings of blackness and queerness from their own particular subject positions. Recalling DuBois’s notion of the problematic black subject at the turn of the 20th century, this conference foregrounded black same-sexual identity politics, homosexual desire and transgressive, non-heterosexist bodies as essential axiomatic problems to be considered by a Black and Queer Studies committed to addressing the needs of the new millennium. The skillful and generous organizers of the conference, Professors E. Patrick Johnson and Mae G. Henderson, described the conference as one intent upon examining how black queer theorists, in particular, can critically intervene in the formation of Queer Studies as a disciplinary project. To clarify the particular nature of this intervention, the organizers outlined a set of postulatory questions that provided the infrastructure and focus of the conference’s five panel discussions and keynote address: What are the implications of queer theory for the study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people of color? Does queer as a term actually fulfill its promise of inclusivity as it is deployed in queer theory? How do those of us who teach queer theory effectively integrate the categories of race, class and materiality? How do we who are activists reconcile queer theory with political praxis? What is the impact of queer theory on the reception and analysis of black gay literature and cultural performance?African and African Diaspora Studie

Kinky clients, kinky counselling? The challenges and potentials of BDSM

About the book: Feeling Queer or Queer Feelings? presents highly innovative and contemporary ideas for counsellors, counselling and clinical psychologists and psychotherapists to consider in their work with non-heterosexual clients. Ground-breaking ideas are presented by new thinkers in the area for issues such as: coming out transgender desire theoretical modalities in working with HIV the role of therapy in bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadomasochism the use of queer theory in therapeutic research

Intersectionality queer studies and hybridity: methodological frameworks for social research

This article seeks to draw links between intersectionality and queer studies as epistemological strands by examining their common methodological tasks and by tracing some similar difficulties of translating theory into research methods. Intersectionality is the systematic study of the ways in which differences such as race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and other sociopolitical and cultural identities interrelate. Queer theory, when applied as a distinct methodological approach to the study of gender and sexuality, has sought to denaturalise categories of analysis and make normativity visible. By examining existing research projects framed as 'queer' alongside ones that use intersectionality, I consider the importance of positionality in research accounts. I revisit Judith Halberstam's (1998) 'Female Masculinity' and Gloria Anzaldua's (1987) 'Borderlands' and discuss the tension between the act of naming and the critical strategical adoption of categorical thinking. Finally, I suggest hybridity as one possible complementary methodological approach to those of intersectionality and queer studies. Hybridity can facilitate an understanding of shifting textual and material borders and can operate as a creative and political mode of destabilising not only complex social locations, but also research frameworks

Queer Theory, Sex Work, and Foucault\u27s Unreason

During the late nineties, leading voices of the sex worker rights movement began to publicly question queer theory’s virtual silence on the subject of prostitution and sex work. However, this attempt by sex workers to “come out of the closet” into the larger queer theoretical community has thus far failed to bring much attention to sex work as an explicitly queer issue. Refusing the obvious conclusion—that queer theory’s silence on sex work somehow proves its insignificance to this field of inquiry—I trace in Foucault’s oeuvre signs of an alternate (albeit differently) queer genealogy of prostitution and sex work. Both challenging and responding to long-standing debates about prostitution within feminist theory, I offer a new queer genealogy of sex work that aims to move beyond the rigid oppositions that continue to divide theorists of sexuality and gender. Focusing specifically on History of Madness (1961), Discipline and Punish (1975), and History of Sexuality Volume I (1976), I make the case for an alternate genealogy of sex work that takes seriously both the historical construction of prostitution and the lived experience of contemporary sex workers

Anthropological Explorations in Queer Theory

Anthropological Explorations in Queer Theory offers a wide ranging fusion of queer theory with anthropological theory, shifting away from the discussion of gender categories and identities that have often constituted a central concern of queer theory and instead exploring the queer elements of contexts in which they are not normally apparent. Engaging with a number of apparently 'non-sexual' topics, including embodiment and fieldwork, regimes of value, gifts and commodities, diversity discourses, biological essentialisms, intersectionality, the philosophy of Bergson and Deleuze, and the representation of heterosexuality in popular culture, this book moves to discuss central concerns of contemporary anthropology, drawing on both the latest anthropological research as well as classic theories. In broadening the field of queer anthropology and opening queer theory to a number of new themes, both empirical and theoretical, Anthropological Explorations in Queer Theory will appeal not only to anthropologists and queer theorists, but also to geographers and sociologists concerned with questions of ontology, materiality and gender and sexuality