Why Queerness is not enough

Moral error theorists often claim to be strongly anti‑metaphysical in their moral scepticism and atheistic naturalists. This paper argues that pre‑ cisely this becomes a problem for them, when their metaethical and ontologi‑ cal commitments clash. I first outline how the known arguments against error theory face a problematic, yet rarely considered trade‑off : either they are very strong, then they are also very demanding in their assumptions or they are less demanding in their assumptions but rather weak in their conclusions. In re‑ sponse to this challenge I then develop a new argument against error theory that exploits an overlooked inconsistency in the error theorists’ standard line of argumentation. I conclude that the implications of this inconsistency are less of a problem for fictionalist error theorists, but will render any eliminativism based on error theory circular

A Glimpse of Casual Queerness: The Radical Progress of Queer Visibility in Weimar Film and the Inevitable Backlash That Followed

In looking back at German history, the Weimar Era and the 1920s, in particular, are often regarded as a time of unrestricted frivolity and the catharsis of post-war anxiety. In retrospect, it can be temptingly easy to credit the changing political landscape and liberalization of German society between 1918 and 1933 as a brief but inherently doomed moment of progressivism that necessarily would give way to a strident, reactionary backlash. Often, the increased visibility and acceptance of LGBTQ individuals during this time is regarded as a symptom of the “anything goes” attitude for which the Weimar Era has been famous. Dismissing the Weimar Republic as frivolous experiment in this way is an oversimplification that overlooks the important progress achieved in the fields of psychology and sexology during this time. In reality, the research performed by scientists like psychologist Magnus Hirschfeld proves that the progress being made for queer Germans during the Weimar years was meaningful and anything but frivolous. In the years following World War II, policymakers of East and West Germany attempted to regain stability, and in doing so adopted a more conservative approach to the issue of homosexuality than their Weimar Republic predecessors. The reactionary movement helped to confirm the sweeping dismissal of the Weimar Era as a moment of chaos and confusion best left behind. This reestablishment of gender norms is clearly illustrated in both the later version of Mädchen in Uniform and Anders als du und ich, in which changing rhetoric and scientific understandings of sexuality demonstrate a significant shift in the way Germans were thinking about queerness

Queer Walsingham

Book synopsis: Walsingham was medieval England's most important shrine to the Virgin Mary and a popular pilgrimage site. Following its modern revival it is also well known today. For nearly a thousand years, it has been the subject of, or referred to in, music, poetry and novels (by for instance Langland, Erasmus, Sidney, Shakespeare, Hopkins, Eliot and Lowell). But only in the last twenty years or so has it received serious scholarly attention. This volume represents the first collection of multi-disciplinary essays on Walsingham's broader cultural significance. Contributors to this book focus on the hitherto neglected issue of Walsingham's cultural impact: the literary, historical, art historical and sociological significance that Walsingham has had for over six hundred years. The collection's essays consider connections between landscape and the sacred, the body and sexuality and Walsingham's place in literature, music and, more broadly, especially since the Reformation, in the construction of cultural memory. The historical range of the essays includes Walsingham's rise to prominence in the later Middle Ages, its destruction during the English Reformation, and the presence of uncanny echoes and traces in early modern English culture, including poems, ballads, music and some of the plays of Shakespeare. Contributions also examine the cultural dynamics of the remarkable revival of Walsingham as a place of pilgrimage and as a cultural icon in the Victorian and modern periods. Hitherto, scholarship on Walsingham has been almost entirely confined to the history of religion. In contrast, contributors to this volume include internationally known scholars from literature, cultural studies, history, sociology, anthropology and musicology as well as theology

Queer Feelings/Feeling Queer: A Conversation with Heather Love about Politics. Teaching, and the "Dark, Tender Thrills" of Affect

Conversation with Heather Love about queerness and affect

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

Queer theory, literary diaspora studies and the law

The article examines the well attested intersections between queer studies and the state of being in diaspora. This is a metaphorical alignment and comparability based on notions of being cast out and alienated from 'home'. But when it comes to living in the diaspora or living as gay, the analogy breaks down somewhat. The article suggests that queer theory underpins the successful politicisation of gay communities to gain greater rights such as gay marriage; whereas migrant communities which live in diaspora struggle with having their own cultural practices recognised legally, especially in England where alternative marriage customs do not have the binding force of law and British Asians, for example, often have two forms of solemnisatio

Homeric Studies, Feminism, and Queer Theory: Interpreting Helen and Penelope

Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Amy Richlin’s Feminist Theory and the Classics (1993) and Barbara F. McManus’ Classics and Feminism: Gendering the Classics (1997) provided ground-breaking surveys of the feminist revolution in classical studies, and their work leads us to the question of the feminist impact on the study of Homer. In this essay, I review the contributions of feminist scholarship on Homer and explore queer theory as a new heuristic avenue for advancing the feminist interpretation of the Homeric epics. With this approach, I follow upon and revise McManus’ use of the concept of “dual-gendering” (a term that I employ instead of her original “transgendered,” as I explain below) for her feminist analysis of Virgil’s Latin epic, the Aeneid. Her interpretive lens encourages us to look for complexity in epic gender representation and to investigate the ideological functions of this representation; my deployment of queer theory reframes her line of inquiry in terms of the gender normative and deviant and includes in its purview the additional categories of sexuality and power relations. [excerpt

Regulating and resisting queer creativity: community-engaged arts practice in the neoliberal city

This article draws from and advances urban studies literature on ‘creative city’ policies by exploring the contradictory role of queer arts practice in contemporary placemarketing strategies. Here I reflect on the fraught politics surrounding Radiodress’s each hand as they are called project, a deeply personal exploration of radical Jewish history programmed within Luminato, a Toronto-based international festival of creativity. Specifically, I explore how Luminato and the Koffler Centre, a Jewish organisation promoting contemporary art, regulated Radiodress’s work in order to stage marketable notions of ethnic and queer diversity. I also examine how and why the Koffler Centre eventually blacklisted Radiodress and her project. However, I also consider the ways Radiodress and Toronto artists creatively and collectively responded to these tensions. I maintain that bringing queer arts practice into discussions about contemporary creative city policies uncovers sites of queer arts activism that scale up to shape broader policies and debates. Such disidentificatory interventions, acts of co-opting and re-working discourses which exclude minoritarian subjects, challenge violent processes of colonisation and commodification on multiple fronts, as well as fostering more collective and relational ways of being