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Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies
Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times
In this pathbreaking work, Jasbir K. Puar argues that configurations of sexuality, race, gender, nation, class, and ethnicity are realigning in relation to contemporary forces of securitization, counterterrorism, and nationalism. She examines how liberal politics incorporate certain queer subjects into the fold of the nation-state, through developments including the legal recognition inherent in the overturning of anti-sodomy laws and the proliferation of more mainstream representation. These incorporations have shifted many queers from their construction as figures of death (via the AIDS epidemic) to subjects tied to ideas of life and productivity (gay marriage and reproductive kinship). Puar contends, however, that this tenuous inclusion of some queer subjects depends on the production of populations of Orientalized terrorist bodies. Heteronormative ideologies that the U.S. nation-state has long relied on are now accompanied by homonormative ideologies that replicate narrow racial, class, gender, and national ideals. These “homonationalisms” are deployed to distinguish upright “properly hetero,” and now “properly homo,” U.S. patriots from perversely sexualized and racialized terrorist look-a-likes—especially Sikhs, Muslims, and Arabs—who are cordoned off for detention and deportation.Puar combines transnational feminist and queer theory, Foucauldian biopolitics, Deleuzian philosophy, and technoscience criticism, and draws from an extraordinary range of sources, including governmental texts, legal decisions, films, television, ethnographic data, queer media, and activist organizing materials and manifestos. Looking at various cultural events and phenomena, she highlights troublesome links between terrorism and in feminist and queer responses to the Abu Ghraib photographs, in the triumphal responses to the Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision repealing anti-sodomy laws, in the measures Sikh Americans and South Asian diasporic queers take to avoid being profiled as terrorists, and in what Puar argues is a growing Islamophobia within global queer organizing.
365 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Jasbir K. Puar
14 books184 followersJasbir K. Puar is Associate Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Performance Studies at NYU and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry in Berlin. She received her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley in 1999 and an M.A. from the University of York (UK) in Women’s Studies in 1993. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, globalization; postcolonial and diaspora studies; South Asian cultural studies; and theories of assemblage and affect.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
April 20, 2009
Paur's "Terrorist Assemblages" is an example of theory allowed to substitute for concrete analysis. In the end, Paur's argument is simply one more chapter in the arguments ("Q vs. R", it was called in the Eighties) between those in the gay world who see same-sex preferences as only one factor in life, and those who hope to see "queerness" as a tool for radical subversion. In the end, Paur has simply used postcolonial theory to attack the idea of gay assimilation into liberal society in the West.
Paur is angry at those Western gays who prefer marriage and life within liberal middle-class bounds. Assimilation, she argues, betrays the radical possibilities of "queerness". Paur does not want gay people to be ordinary--- she wants them to be a force for attacking social and political stuctures worldwide.
Her use of "terrorist" and "homonational" is little more than an effort to add a post-2001 gloss to an argument against assimilation, and her invocation of the "Orientalised terrorist body" has little behind it but an effort to position "queerness" as standing with the non-Western world against Western hegemony. She fails utterly to see why Western gays (or "queers") might look at Islamist values as a threat, and refuses to consider the treatment of gay people in Islamist or Islamic-revival societies.
Too much theory, too little attention to the concrete, or to the concrete political wishes of gay people.
Paur is angry at those Western gays who prefer marriage and life within liberal middle-class bounds. Assimilation, she argues, betrays the radical possibilities of "queerness". Paur does not want gay people to be ordinary--- she wants them to be a force for attacking social and political stuctures worldwide.
Her use of "terrorist" and "homonational" is little more than an effort to add a post-2001 gloss to an argument against assimilation, and her invocation of the "Orientalised terrorist body" has little behind it but an effort to position "queerness" as standing with the non-Western world against Western hegemony. She fails utterly to see why Western gays (or "queers") might look at Islamist values as a threat, and refuses to consider the treatment of gay people in Islamist or Islamic-revival societies.
Too much theory, too little attention to the concrete, or to the concrete political wishes of gay people.
August 2, 2016
Jasbir Puar is hardcore. No one is safe from the wrath of her pen.
Combining theory, metaphor and oodles of concrete examples, Puar shows how certain groups of people are able to assimilate, how others use that selective assimilation as an excuse to consider themselves exceptional, and how the world of torture, terrorism, and its reflection in popular culture and academia sometimes act in tandem to oppress or erase unacceptable populations. The introduction and preface are both theory-heavy (and probably best read until after the rest of the text), but this is overall an engaging read. Of the dozens of scholarly monographs I've read to date, this stands in memory as one of the most passionate, and for monographs (which often run the diverse gamut from dry all the way to boring), this is an impressive feat. It doesn't hurt too that Puar's spectrum of resources - Judith Butler, art installments, Foucault, news articles, advertisements, South Park (yup), etc. - keep the writing entertaining even as the information she presents is often shocking, embarrassing, or depressing.
As far as scholarly monographs go, this lady is a rock star. Anyone interested in race and gender and sexuality studies shouldn't ignore this one.
Combining theory, metaphor and oodles of concrete examples, Puar shows how certain groups of people are able to assimilate, how others use that selective assimilation as an excuse to consider themselves exceptional, and how the world of torture, terrorism, and its reflection in popular culture and academia sometimes act in tandem to oppress or erase unacceptable populations. The introduction and preface are both theory-heavy (and probably best read until after the rest of the text), but this is overall an engaging read. Of the dozens of scholarly monographs I've read to date, this stands in memory as one of the most passionate, and for monographs (which often run the diverse gamut from dry all the way to boring), this is an impressive feat. It doesn't hurt too that Puar's spectrum of resources - Judith Butler, art installments, Foucault, news articles, advertisements, South Park (yup), etc. - keep the writing entertaining even as the information she presents is often shocking, embarrassing, or depressing.
As far as scholarly monographs go, this lady is a rock star. Anyone interested in race and gender and sexuality studies shouldn't ignore this one.
September 16, 2024
A thoroughly cruel book. The author of the book seemingly doesn’t care at all about the well-being of any concrete human-being:
- She seemingly doesn’t care about the suffering of homosexuals and women in the Global North. -> The improvement of the living conditions of millions and millions of people over the last decades that have been hard-won by generations of activists are exclusively problematic for her. In her opinion, women and homosexuals are causally responsible for the fact that the US bombed West Asia because they "received" more rights and are therefore responsible for the existence of antimuslim racism. Puar implies that it would have been better if living conditions for women and homosexuals in the global North had still been as bad as they were 100 years ago.
- She seemingly dosen’t care about the suffering of homosexuals and women from Islamic communities. -> By problematizing the problems they have and by fighting for better living conditions, some of them would reproduce anti-Muslim racism and, according to Puar, are therefore responsible for the US bombing West Asia. Puar implies that it would be better if homosexuals and women in Muslim countries would not fight to improve their living conditions, but rather keep quiet.
- She seemingly doesn’t care at all about the death of people who are killed in suicide bombings. -> She glorifies suicide bombings (even regardless of whether or not they have brought political change, but as an purpose in themselves). For Puar, suicide bombings are a perfect example of successful communication (how absurdly cruel!) and the queer practice par excellence. Doing this she spits on the graves of all those people who have become victims of suicide attacks (which are to an large extend people who live in predominantly muslim countries, of which hypocritically she claims to be in solidarity with).
All in all Puar does exactly the same thing that racist pseudo-feminists do - only the other way around:
Racist pseudo-feminists instrumentalize the suffering of women in Muslim countries to give free rein to their racist resentment, but don't give a damn about the suffering of women if they can't instrumentalize it.
Puar on the other hand instrumentalizes the suffering of Muslim people whenever she can use it to give free rein to her antisemitic and antiwestern resentment, but, judging by her book, doesn't give a damn about the suffering of Muslim people if she can't instrumentalize it.
- She seemingly doesn’t care about the suffering of homosexuals and women in the Global North. -> The improvement of the living conditions of millions and millions of people over the last decades that have been hard-won by generations of activists are exclusively problematic for her. In her opinion, women and homosexuals are causally responsible for the fact that the US bombed West Asia because they "received" more rights and are therefore responsible for the existence of antimuslim racism. Puar implies that it would have been better if living conditions for women and homosexuals in the global North had still been as bad as they were 100 years ago.
- She seemingly dosen’t care about the suffering of homosexuals and women from Islamic communities. -> By problematizing the problems they have and by fighting for better living conditions, some of them would reproduce anti-Muslim racism and, according to Puar, are therefore responsible for the US bombing West Asia. Puar implies that it would be better if homosexuals and women in Muslim countries would not fight to improve their living conditions, but rather keep quiet.
- She seemingly doesn’t care at all about the death of people who are killed in suicide bombings. -> She glorifies suicide bombings (even regardless of whether or not they have brought political change, but as an purpose in themselves). For Puar, suicide bombings are a perfect example of successful communication (how absurdly cruel!) and the queer practice par excellence. Doing this she spits on the graves of all those people who have become victims of suicide attacks (which are to an large extend people who live in predominantly muslim countries, of which hypocritically she claims to be in solidarity with).
All in all Puar does exactly the same thing that racist pseudo-feminists do - only the other way around:
Racist pseudo-feminists instrumentalize the suffering of women in Muslim countries to give free rein to their racist resentment, but don't give a damn about the suffering of women if they can't instrumentalize it.
Puar on the other hand instrumentalizes the suffering of Muslim people whenever she can use it to give free rein to her antisemitic and antiwestern resentment, but, judging by her book, doesn't give a damn about the suffering of Muslim people if she can't instrumentalize it.
June 22, 2008
Had to read this for thesis, but also, a class. The class forced me to plunge through it. The professor's advice was to read the conclusion first, then the chapters, then the intro; that helped more.
Here concepts, as metaphors are strung nicely throughout the book. One of the better texts I've seen to methodologically use interdisciplinarity... Also critical of intersectionality, but proposes assemblages. An excellent academic read.
Here concepts, as metaphors are strung nicely throughout the book. One of the better texts I've seen to methodologically use interdisciplinarity... Also critical of intersectionality, but proposes assemblages. An excellent academic read.
September 27, 2008
Some day I want to write like Jasbir Puar. That is all.
July 22, 2009
In my search for books to use as the focus of my MFA project, this is definitely one of the best books I've come across. It flows from the richly productive intersection of queer theory, postcolonial theory and poststructuralist theory, as the title implies. Yet this author isn't content to demonstrate how a concept from Deleuze is demonstrated by her example, she vibrantly puts these concepts to work in a passionate attempt to critically examine queer politics and find out exactly how it is being coopted and used by "war on terror" agendas. From Katy Perry to Tila Tequila to Ikea ads with interracial gay couples, cooptation of queer sexualities for decidely non-radical ends is everywhere, and Jasbir K. Puar shows in this careful, well-written, thorough book how queer politics is being aligned with anti-muslim and pro-war politics.
November 6, 2024
Shelving thesis books I forgot to add in the spring. I will admit I did not read every page of this as I was using it for research but I love Puar and think the world needs more of her.
Fall 24 update-
I still have not read this all the way through and I definitely should but just popping back to say this is a great book to read on election day.
Fall 24 update-
I still have not read this all the way through and I definitely should but just popping back to say this is a great book to read on election day.
August 23, 2024
Possibly the most reactionary inhumane garbage I‘ve ever had to witness. Jasbir Puar is a cruel, homophobic and antisemitic cynic who is not interested in making the world a better place for anyone at all. Unless she‘s an extremely gifted satirist mocking the complete madness postmodern theory has descended to, as I still choose to hope.
September 20, 2008
This book argues that in these fearful times formed by the global war on terror and neoliberal capitalist policies that queer identities are being commodified by white heterosexual society in order to more fully control the processes of the body, the mind, and most importantly one's psychic identification with the nation state.
May 22, 2009
I am a Ph. D. candidate at an ELITE Research One University, and I could not understand this book. My professor didn't know how to teach it to us, and he's a very smart dude. What does that say about this text? Not good things, I must say.
June 30, 2018
Puar's critiques of homonationalism and work on how terrorists function as queer subjects make this book incredibly thought provoking. But Puar's writing can also be quite dense. Whenever Puar is not utilizing a text to clarify her thoughts and further her analysis, the amount of citations she incorporates can be overwhelming. I can see why people would not finish this book if they do not have a clear investment in queer theory and/or post-9/11 American culture.
July 21, 2021
i had to read this for a class but it was so interesting and really introduced me to the concept of homonationalism, which i now see is so relevant in feminist/queer theory.
October 27, 2020
Good (big) expansion on Duggan's homonormativity. Interesting approach to postcolonial(?) queer theory (and queer geography). In some parts could use more elaboration/clarification. I look forward to reading The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability
A bit far from my thesis project, but I read this for this semester's reading list. I read it more for the method she used, and some of the theoretical bases (affect, assemblage, especially).
A bit far from my thesis project, but I read this for this semester's reading list. I read it more for the method she used, and some of the theoretical bases (affect, assemblage, especially).
February 23, 2016
I think this book raised some pretty good issues, and ones that had made me uncomfortable with the way we are all meant to assimilate "queerness" in one narrow way and politically work out of that. Also with the sort of xenophobic, racist and generally orientalist ideas floating around as "common sense" at the moment. My peeve with this book is I wondered if at times the language was deliberately so hard to understand. Maybe not...but it was maddening that "Assemblages" which is a big idea in terms of the book are not actually defined until the conclusion which is where we first hear of an idea that "intersectionality" is inadequate, an idea which at that very late stage then gets the scantest treatment along with throw in assumptions that future-orientation and child-centredness need critical deconstruction (which as someone working in early childhood I was very interested to know more about) but this also is only teasingly told us not unpicked.
The book as a whole is a tease. I was happy in ch 4 when the author told us some of his own perspective and there were other wonderful passages of reflexivity which acknowledged the book's limits and self-contradictions. But there were long, hard passages that were hard to follow. I am still hazy on exactly what "queer diaspora" is. Can I admit that?
As a queer person who finds the whole middle-class capitalist dream with white picket fences that seems the assumed aim of the modern homosexual both problematic and boring, I loved that the book looked at how that way of doing "queer" serves nationalistic and xenophobic interests (and partially reforms while still marginalising the queer person, somewhat like a "good native" or the "nice feminist". I loved that the book nodded to feminism even when taking an androcentric focus (more author reflexivity and the concrete identity where this was coming from would have been interesting). I found the stuff on torture awful to read about but once again some significant points were made. I didn;t really understand the turban chapter which was a shame because I felt that for the author that might have been the real crux of everything.
I am glad I struggled though it. I am glad it wasn't any longer. I'd like more of this, and written for people who don't think Foucault is too easy!
I do think some of these ways of thinking need to be taken into queer and post-colonial thinking.
The book as a whole is a tease. I was happy in ch 4 when the author told us some of his own perspective and there were other wonderful passages of reflexivity which acknowledged the book's limits and self-contradictions. But there were long, hard passages that were hard to follow. I am still hazy on exactly what "queer diaspora" is. Can I admit that?
As a queer person who finds the whole middle-class capitalist dream with white picket fences that seems the assumed aim of the modern homosexual both problematic and boring, I loved that the book looked at how that way of doing "queer" serves nationalistic and xenophobic interests (and partially reforms while still marginalising the queer person, somewhat like a "good native" or the "nice feminist". I loved that the book nodded to feminism even when taking an androcentric focus (more author reflexivity and the concrete identity where this was coming from would have been interesting). I found the stuff on torture awful to read about but once again some significant points were made. I didn;t really understand the turban chapter which was a shame because I felt that for the author that might have been the real crux of everything.
I am glad I struggled though it. I am glad it wasn't any longer. I'd like more of this, and written for people who don't think Foucault is too easy!
I do think some of these ways of thinking need to be taken into queer and post-colonial thinking.
September 9, 2016
This is definitely one of the most important texts of the last decade with a great complicated argument-a good thing because complicated problems require complicated analysis. I'm not much of a theory head and this book is full of academic language-sometimes excessively and unneccessarily so-but I didn't really find it that hard to follow. I enjoyed this argument a lot more the times I read it in essay form though. Also I do wish that if Puar was going to get into as big an idea as why intersectionality doesn't work as an analytical tool that she would have tied it into her many examples in the body of the book instead of just throwing it into the conclusion like it was an afterthought.
April 3, 2020
I read a few chapters years ago but decided to tackle the monograph in its entirety. It's complex, but well worth it. Puar invests much of the text on homonationalism, a term she uses to describe the neoliberal agenda that normalizes white gay men and women who then partake in othering/ostracizing queer individuals of various racial and national backgrounds (the terrorists of heteronormativity, neoliberalism, biopolitics, exceptionalism). My only critique is that I wish she returned more in-depth to the concept of homonationalism in the conclusion. Instead, her response that parallels already thought of theories on queer futurity and intersectionality seemed bland.
July 15, 2024
“Homonationalism fundamentally highlights a critique of how lesbian and gay liberal rights discourses produce narratives of progress and modernity that continue to accord some populations access to cultural and legal forms of citizenship at the expense of the partial or full expulsion from those rights of other populations”
Puar gives a fundamental and deep analysis of the inclusion of gay and lesbians into the workings and institutions of the state. Why is it that politicians are celebrated for repealing sodomy laws while they also repeal access to citizenship for children of immigrants? Why is it that Israel can be hailed as the gay capital of the Middle East while it murders and maims queer Palestinians? Homonationalism, that’s how.
Very insightful book and thought provoking, at times difficult to read in its quite abstract analyses but always brings you back in.
Puar gives a fundamental and deep analysis of the inclusion of gay and lesbians into the workings and institutions of the state. Why is it that politicians are celebrated for repealing sodomy laws while they also repeal access to citizenship for children of immigrants? Why is it that Israel can be hailed as the gay capital of the Middle East while it murders and maims queer Palestinians? Homonationalism, that’s how.
Very insightful book and thought provoking, at times difficult to read in its quite abstract analyses but always brings you back in.
February 14, 2021
One of the most ambitious, expansive, and ground-breaking academic works I've read. My only qualms with it are that it could have been written more concisely, and the ideas could have been drawn closer together. I feel like this could have been separated into two texts; there's just so much to unpack and condense. Now I'm going to worry about my report...
March 13, 2024
Absolutely amazing. I'd like to read this again in 3-4 years and see how much more my understanding has developed
Read
January 27, 2021Might be a very compelling book however, I need to revisit it as reading it at the time I did not understand. Very heavily academic.
November 11, 2022
I thought this was fine. I like the use of assemblages, I’m not sure I was totally convinced by the pairing of terrorist and queer assemblages.
April 27, 2023
I love this analysis. US exceptionalism and its reliance on white supremacy bleeds over not only into social and political spheres beyond the racialized and gendered, but also to all corners of the world. US exceptionalism relies on and produces “normative” ideas of the sexual and private, and holds them up as the aspirational – not only for its own citizens who do not fit into a colonial binary identity, but also to global citizens who may deviate from the white, cis and heteronormative American perpetuated ideal. This ideal crosses identity boundaries even amidst those groups that are not represented by it: for example, queer Americans are still further queered and othered if they are Sikh or Muslim, if they are disabled, and so on. This ties into familiar concepts regarding our hegemonic understandings and representations of marginalized groups: just as Amerindians are tended to be lumped together despite being incredibly varied between the thousands of tribes in culture and identity, so too do we hegemonize identities that exist beyond heterosexual, and even beyond the heteronormative. US sexual exceptionalism is implemented in and emulated through all forms of its imperial reach, including in its “war on terror” and Islamophobia.
May 13, 2011
Puar's work promises so much more than it is ultimately able to deliver. She offers a cogent, and quite necessary critique, of homonormativity's encounter with the nation-state, a meeting she calls "homonationalism." However, she often tends towards essentializing the queer as that which must be, by its existence, radical, and her figuration of the suicide bomber as that which performs the duty the queer should otherwise perform (I'm assuming metaphorically?) seems intended only to be provocative and, if not, seems incredibly problematic.
Read
February 13, 2025i don’t think this book is meant to be read in its entirety, and is definitely not meant as leisure reading outside of academia. so, don’t read it. but familiarize yourself with the term homonationalism and the racist overtones of depictions of the terrorist figure in media, especially when paired with a celebration of liberal values. i’m going to share some quotes that i found especially poignant, i know i picked quite a few, but i recommend thinking on them:
“The contemporary U.S. heteronormative nation actually relies on and benefits from the proliferation of queerness, especially in regard to the sexually exceptional homonational and its evil counterpart, the queer terrorist of elsewhere.”
“Gender exceptionalism … works to suggest that, in contrast to women in the United States, Muslim women are, at the end of the day, unsavable. More insidiously, these discourses of exceptionalism allude to the unsalvageable nature of Muslim women even by their own feminists, positioning the American feminist as the feminist subject par excellence.”
“Palestinian queers are teleologically read through the fanatic lens of Islamic fundamentalism rather than the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and statehood, an interest in progressive queer politics, or even a liberal humanist exegesis of desire. … Delineating Palestine as the site of queer oppression—oppression that is equated with the occupation of Palestine by Israel—effaces Israeli state persecution of queer Palestinians. … This dialectical analogy, whereby the persecution of Palestinians by Israel is ‘like’ Palestinian persecution of queers, does a tremendous disservice to the incommensurate predicaments at stake and refuses any possible linkages between the two, indeed refuses that one form of oppression might sustain or even create the conditions of possibility for the other..”
“The right wing relies on poor immigrant labor for its hegemonic ideological base—family values, faith-based initiatives, anti– gay marriage, anti–gay adoption rights, antichoice—and reproduces the economic and political conditions of compulsory heterosexuality and thus is the breeding ground for homophobia.”
“The homonormative aids the project of heteronormativity through the fractioning away of queer alliances in favor of adherence to the reproduction of class, gender, and racial norms.”
“The terrorist figure is not merely racialized and sexualized; the body must appear improperly racialized (outside the norms of multiculturalism) and perversely sexualized in order to materialize as the terrorist in the first place.”
“There are at least three deployments of homonationalism that bolster the nation. First, it reiterates heterosexuality as the norm; for example, the bid for gay marriage accords an “equal but different” status (equal to the heterosexual norm of marriage for gay and queer monogamous relationships). Second, it fosters nationalist homosexual positionalities indebted to liberalism (through normative kinship forms as well as through consumption spheres that set up state/market dichotomies), which then police (through panopticon and profile) nonnationalist nonnormative sexualities. Third, it enables a transnational discourse of U.S. sexual exceptionalism vis-à-vis perversely racialized bodies of pathologized nationalities (both inside and outside U.S. borders).”
“… media depictions staged within the therapeutic framework that tend to afford great meaning, significance, and sympathy to those who lost friends and family members in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. By contrast, people who have lost loved ones as a consequence of US foreign policy elsewhere are not depicted as sufferers of trauma or injustice.”
“Religion—not politics, not economics—is figured as the reason behind terrorist activity. Religion is understood in these documents through the lens of liberal secularism as the antithesis to modernity and rationality. … Religious belief is thus cast, in relation to other factors fueling terrorism, as the overflow, the final excess that impels monstrosity—the ‘different attitude towards violence’ signaling these uncivilizable forces. … The ‘terrorist psychology’ concept is a convenient way of evading complexities, including political ones.”
“Advertising to gay men and lesbians has often promised that full inclusion in the national community of Americans is available through personal consumption. ... Thus the exceptionalism presented in these narratives about gay and lesbian consumption contains not only the gay or lesbian consumer as a consumer par excellence, but also marks this homonational consumer as an American patriot par excellence.”
“The violence of the United States is [considered] an exceptional event, antithetical to Americanness, and thus by extension, U.S. subjects emerge as morally, culturally, and politically exceptional through the production of the victims as repressed, barbaric, closed, uncouth, even homophobic, grounding claims of sexual exceptionalism that hinge on the normativization of certain U.S. feminist and homosexual subjects.”
“The terrorist body retains a connection to sodomy that renders it incapable and unworthy of the kind of intimate homosexual sex possible for proper homosexual national subjects, a distinction that projects its effects externally but also to subjects within the boundaries of U.S. nationalism and citizenship.”
i highlighted a lot more in the book, but as i said, you don’t need to read the whole thing. but the discourse is well worth examining.
“The contemporary U.S. heteronormative nation actually relies on and benefits from the proliferation of queerness, especially in regard to the sexually exceptional homonational and its evil counterpart, the queer terrorist of elsewhere.”
“Gender exceptionalism … works to suggest that, in contrast to women in the United States, Muslim women are, at the end of the day, unsavable. More insidiously, these discourses of exceptionalism allude to the unsalvageable nature of Muslim women even by their own feminists, positioning the American feminist as the feminist subject par excellence.”
“Palestinian queers are teleologically read through the fanatic lens of Islamic fundamentalism rather than the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and statehood, an interest in progressive queer politics, or even a liberal humanist exegesis of desire. … Delineating Palestine as the site of queer oppression—oppression that is equated with the occupation of Palestine by Israel—effaces Israeli state persecution of queer Palestinians. … This dialectical analogy, whereby the persecution of Palestinians by Israel is ‘like’ Palestinian persecution of queers, does a tremendous disservice to the incommensurate predicaments at stake and refuses any possible linkages between the two, indeed refuses that one form of oppression might sustain or even create the conditions of possibility for the other..”
“The right wing relies on poor immigrant labor for its hegemonic ideological base—family values, faith-based initiatives, anti– gay marriage, anti–gay adoption rights, antichoice—and reproduces the economic and political conditions of compulsory heterosexuality and thus is the breeding ground for homophobia.”
“The homonormative aids the project of heteronormativity through the fractioning away of queer alliances in favor of adherence to the reproduction of class, gender, and racial norms.”
“The terrorist figure is not merely racialized and sexualized; the body must appear improperly racialized (outside the norms of multiculturalism) and perversely sexualized in order to materialize as the terrorist in the first place.”
“There are at least three deployments of homonationalism that bolster the nation. First, it reiterates heterosexuality as the norm; for example, the bid for gay marriage accords an “equal but different” status (equal to the heterosexual norm of marriage for gay and queer monogamous relationships). Second, it fosters nationalist homosexual positionalities indebted to liberalism (through normative kinship forms as well as through consumption spheres that set up state/market dichotomies), which then police (through panopticon and profile) nonnationalist nonnormative sexualities. Third, it enables a transnational discourse of U.S. sexual exceptionalism vis-à-vis perversely racialized bodies of pathologized nationalities (both inside and outside U.S. borders).”
“… media depictions staged within the therapeutic framework that tend to afford great meaning, significance, and sympathy to those who lost friends and family members in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. By contrast, people who have lost loved ones as a consequence of US foreign policy elsewhere are not depicted as sufferers of trauma or injustice.”
“Religion—not politics, not economics—is figured as the reason behind terrorist activity. Religion is understood in these documents through the lens of liberal secularism as the antithesis to modernity and rationality. … Religious belief is thus cast, in relation to other factors fueling terrorism, as the overflow, the final excess that impels monstrosity—the ‘different attitude towards violence’ signaling these uncivilizable forces. … The ‘terrorist psychology’ concept is a convenient way of evading complexities, including political ones.”
“Advertising to gay men and lesbians has often promised that full inclusion in the national community of Americans is available through personal consumption. ... Thus the exceptionalism presented in these narratives about gay and lesbian consumption contains not only the gay or lesbian consumer as a consumer par excellence, but also marks this homonational consumer as an American patriot par excellence.”
“The violence of the United States is [considered] an exceptional event, antithetical to Americanness, and thus by extension, U.S. subjects emerge as morally, culturally, and politically exceptional through the production of the victims as repressed, barbaric, closed, uncouth, even homophobic, grounding claims of sexual exceptionalism that hinge on the normativization of certain U.S. feminist and homosexual subjects.”
“The terrorist body retains a connection to sodomy that renders it incapable and unworthy of the kind of intimate homosexual sex possible for proper homosexual national subjects, a distinction that projects its effects externally but also to subjects within the boundaries of U.S. nationalism and citizenship.”
i highlighted a lot more in the book, but as i said, you don’t need to read the whole thing. but the discourse is well worth examining.
April 9, 2024
By no small margin, the single most influential intellectual force in my life remains this Papaya Dog-loving bitch who, in the middle of the War on Terror, had the wherewithal to submit a discourse-heavy academic manuscript that nonetheless finds it necessary to phrase thusly: “A reversal of positions is conceded and masculine-masculine penetration acknowledged, but feminine-feminine penetration (fists, fingers, dildos, to name but a few projectiles) appears unfathomable.”
September 3, 2021
What in the fuck?
A handful of scattered interesting ideas couched in such incomprehensible posturing academic jargon that the whole thing reeked of a cautionary tale of what happens when form outweighs substance. An editor would be a boon.
A handful of scattered interesting ideas couched in such incomprehensible posturing academic jargon that the whole thing reeked of a cautionary tale of what happens when form outweighs substance. An editor would be a boon.
March 13, 2024
I love Jasbir Puar and this was the first work of hers that I ever read. This text is in my opinion genius and exemplifies feminist scholarship in its highest form. I think this is an essential for those interested in queer theory especially in the contexts of the United States and the Middle-East.
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November 27, 2012Reviewed here.
February 18, 2017
Excellent book, but very academic and a heavy read. Definitely worth it though, but I'd recommend reading "Orientalism" by Edward Said first.
August 3, 2024
and that's on period
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