Narcissus in Queer Time

Queer temporality has been studied in relation to the Middle Ages as a means of questioning the prevailing historiography for other modes of connection to the past, such as embodied or affective. Conversely, the other branch of queer temporality has been primarily interested in how queer lifestyles today disrupt the heteronormative plan laid out by society. Joining these modes, Gower’s revision of Narcissus questions our notions of historiography through showing us an example of a queer, transgender character and his struggles with heteronormative expectations—demonstrating that the medieval is not so disconnected from the modern

Growing intimate privatepublics: Everyday utopia in the naturecultures of a young lesbian and bisexual women’s allotment

The Young Women’s Group in Manchester is a ‘young women’s peer health project, run by and for young lesbian and bisexual women’, which runs an allotment as one of its activities. At a time when interest in allotments and gardening appears to be on the increase, the existence of yet another community allotment may seem unremarkable. Yet we suggest that this queer allotment poses challenges for conventional theorisations of allotments, as well as for understandings of public and private. In this article we explore how the allotment project might be understood to be intensely engaged in ‘growing intimate publics’, or what we term ‘privatepublics’. These are paradoxical intimacies, privatepublic spaces which are not necessarily made possible in the usual private sphere of domestic homes. Here we focus on the work involved in materialising the allotment, which we understand as a queer privatepublic ‘natureculture’ (Haraway, 2008) which appears as an ‘everyday utopia’ (Cooper, 2014)

Stop the Silence

I am tired of the numbers. The statistics. We all know them. One out of every six women are the victims of sexual assault. One out of thirty-three men are victims of sexual assault. Forty-four percent of victims are under the age of eighteen at the time of their assault. The transgender and queer communities are three times as likely to be targeted for sexual assault. But numbers don’t carry meaning, the don’t carry identity, and they (very quickly) lose their weight and are forgotten. Names mean much more. Stories make an impact

Ancestry

Ancestry websites like 23 and Me or Ancestry.com remove the culture and the meaning behind the concept of ancestry. Ancestry as a concept means looking back at the culture we come from and the ways of life that shaped our ancestors. With queerness, ancestry cannot be traced through bloodlines. It is a passing down of culture through word of mouth. This culture has not been preserved over time but rather erased. This piece is a social commentary on the erased culture of queerness and showing the culture and what has kept it hidden. As someone who identifies as both queer and trans, I wanted to explore my culture and provoke the question of what cultures and ancestries are not told. Minoritized groups and cultures are more susceptible to being erased from history and modern culture. This piece questions why these cultures are erased and what power comes from knowing your culture and history. The poem starts by discussing how queer and trans people are more likely to commit or attempt suicide compared to their straight and cisgender counterparts. The likelihood of suicide increases in queer and trans youth when they are not supported by their parents and/or peers. The poem then moves to talk about queer and trans people in history that have been erased or not acknowledged. The first person mentioned is Bayard Rustin, an openly gay, black man in the era of the Civil Rights Movement. He organized the March on Washington in 1963 and helped organize the Freedom Rides. Since Rustin was gay, other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement had him in the background and doing behind the scenes work. His sexuality was seen as too risky and damaging to the image of the movement. The next person mentioned is Lili Elbe, a trans woman. She successfully received gender confirmation surgery. However, when she got a uterus transplant, she died from complications. The movie The Danish Girl was based on her life. The last person mentioned is Wilmer Broadnax. He was a transman in the early 1900s. He was a gospel singer. The only person who knew he was trans was his brother. When he died, he was outed as trans. This section of the poem ends with talking about how these people were erased. History classes do not mention them. This is what makes queer and trans identities seem like a new thing. There is not a lot of documented history of queer and trans identities. Even less is taught in school. The next section talks about being queer and/or trans in the military. Recently, there has been a transgender military ban. The ban is a slap in the face of trans military members and veterans. They are/have risked their lives for this country. They are being told they are a liability and are not valuable. This section also mentions the earlier policy “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” This forced queer and trans military members into the closet. If they were out, they could be discharged from the military. This section ends with recognizing the brave queer and/or trans members of the military. The next section of the poem talks about how coming out is a gamble. Queer and/or trans people have a chance of being disowned or kicked out of their families when coming out. They also have a chance of being sent to conversion therapy. One method used in conversion therapy is electroshock. This is an extreme practice and is not often used in modern day. This will show homoerotic images and shock the patient being “treated.” The last section goes back to medieval times. During those times, queer and trans people would be burned at the foot of the stake. They were not considered worthy of burning at the stake. They laid with bundles of sticks, which is where the term “f*gg*t” became associated with queer and trans people. The poem then ends with a reminder that queer and trans history is rooted in death

David Beckham as a historical moment in the representation of masculinity

There can be no doubt that David Beckham is a public figure of intense media interest in contemporary Britain. This paper is the first stage in a project which aims to explore the circuit of representation and reception of Beckham in current culture. I use a grounded theory approach to generate and categorise the ways in which representations are constructed. The empirical focus is on the discourses around Beckham which are apparent in magazines from May to October 2002. This six month period covers some extremely significant events in his private and professional lives; from his injury just before the World Cup; his recovery and subsequent captaincy of England during the tournament; his on-going fashion and celebrity career with consecutive cover spreads for major magazines, to the arrival of Romeo - his second child. As such, this time-span provided ample and diverse examples of how he is represented in this particular form of lifestyle media. The conceptual categories generated through the grounded theory approach are analysed using ideas drawn from queer theory. My aim is to explore whether queer ideas of discursive resistance, disruption, or destabilisation, are useful explanatory frameworks when discussing the modes of representation which are deployed to construct David Beckham as a working class heterosexual subject. I suggest that queer theory does allow an appreciation of new elements being coded into working-class masculinity. However, current changes in the representation of masculinity may be more usefully understood as expansions of the 'sign' of masculinity operating as a commodity form

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

Purity in Seclusion: Exploring the Anchoritic Lifestyle through an Archaeological Lens

This paper uses both archaeological and ethno-historical data to cross-examine theoretical explanations for understanding the anchoritic lifestyle, which are grounded in gender and feminist theory, sexuality and queer theory, as well as theories of personhood and permeability. For interpretations related to gender and feminist theory, I will crossexamine case studies involving other circumstances of ordained seclusion in Christianity. These case studies include the monjeríos, or the separate living quarters built for unmarried indigenous women of Spanish colonial California, as well as seclusion of “wayward women” by the Magdalen Society of Philadelphia. In addition, I examine archaeological studies conducted by Roberta Gilchirst and Michelle Sauer, who interpret aspects of the anchoress’ worldview through the lens of sexuality and queer theory. I offer a critique of these various theoretical frameworks and also consider theories of personhood, particularly the notion of permeability, as a more productive theoretical approach for understanding the lifestyle and choices of the medieval anchoress. The physical remains of the anchoress’ lifestyle and archaeological analysis provide a new lens with which to imagine the anchoritic worldview, a subject which has only been explored using literature written by men from this time. By exploring the anchoritic lifestyle in this way, we can let the anchoresses, who wrote very little, speak a little more for themselves

Further paradoxes on offer: proposals for a queer policy

This paper claims the queer label as the place of paradoxical identity, the meeting point for transgressor identities, especially concerning gender and sexuality. We are talking about a series of proposals —not prescriptions or orders— aimed at rewriting the queer, maintaining a dialogue with a set of artistic texts, approaching the text not so much to exemplify but to inscribe and at the same time to write queer possibilities, whether they are lacking or in excess.El artículo reivindica la etiqueta queer como el lugar de la identidad paradójica, como un lugar de encuentro para esas identidades transgresoras, especialmente a lo que a los géneros y a las sexualidades concierne. Se trata de una serie de propuestas de rescritura de lo queer, no de prescripciones o mandamientos, que dialogan con un conjunto de textos artísticos que acuden al texto no tanto para ejemplificar como para inscribir y escribir a la vez, en falta y en exceso, las posibilidades queer

Hos in the garden: staging and resisting neoliberal creativity

This article takes up the challenge of extending and enhancing the literature on arts interventions and creative city policies by considering the role of feminist and queer artistic praxis in contemporary urban politics. Here I reflect on the complicities and potentialities of two Toronto-based arts interventions: Dig In and the Dirty Plotz cabaret. I analyse an example of community based arts strategy that strived to ‘revitalise’ one disinvested Toronto neighbourhood. I also reflect on my experience performing drag king urban planner, Toby Sharp. Reflecting on these examples, I show how market-oriented arts policies entangle women artists in the cultivation of spaces of depoliticised feminism, homonormativity and white privilege. However, I also demonstrate how women artists are playfully and performatively pushing back at hegemonic regimes with the radical aesthetic praxis of cabaret. I maintain that bringing critical feminist arts spaces and cabaret practice into discussions about neoliberal urban policies uncovers sites of feminist resistance and solidarity, interventions that challenge violent processes of colonisation and privatisation on multiple fronts

Reclaiming Sacred Space

I wrote this piece for myself as a hybrid of personal discovery and academic inquiry, and I hope it can guide and empower others like myself. In this piece, I examine the intersections of queer identity with religious and spiritual identity development and discuss how practitioners can help students reclaim sacred space. Foregrounding my personal narrative and expanding with scholarship, I show why this development deserves attention from student affairs professionals. I give both programmatic and institutional considerations to review when centering religious and spiritual development for LGBTQ students