Another Country: Queer Anti-Urbanism

by Scott Herring

The metropolis has been the near exclusive focus of queer scholars and queer cultures in America. Asking us to look beyond the cities on the coasts, Scott Herring draws a new map, tracking how rural queers have responded to this myopic mindset. Interweaving a wide range of disciplines—art, media, literature, performance, and fashion studies—he develops an extended critique of how metronormativity saturates LGBTQ politics, artwork, and criticism. To counter this ideal, he offers a vibrant theory of queer anti-urbanism that refuses to dismiss the rural as a cultural backwater. Impassioned and provocative, Another Country expands the possibilities of queer studies beyond its city limits. Herring leads his readers from faeries in the rural Midwest to photographs of white supremacists in the deep South, from Roland Barthes’s obsession with Parisian fashion to a graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel set in the Appalachian Mountains, and from cubist paintings in Lancaster County to lesbian separatist communes on the northern California coast. The result is an entirely original account of how queer studies can—and should—get to another country.

Genres: LGBT, Queer, Nonfiction, Theory, Urbanism, Academic, Gender and Sexuality

262 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2010

Reviews

[6655321 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe if Eli Clare (of Exile and Pride fame) is a central figure you are going to quote repeatedly and utilize to spin a narrative you shouldn't fuck his pronouns up repeatedly? More related to the book, its a really interesting question on how metropoles shape an assumed queer culture but i'm more interested in the material sort of side of this than the literary/artistic so this whole thing is of slightly limited utility to me?

[John Treat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clever, funny, and delightfully sarcastic where it counts. You'll never drive I-80 again and not remember what Herring has taught you.

[David Ivany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative and I appreciated the challenge to metronormativity. I know it was published in 2010 and a lot has changed since then but I am so sick of queer research bringing up positive examples from Michigan Womyns Festival without interrogating what it represents. I'd be interested to see if Herring has done any additional work into anti-urbanist trans/non-binary folks

[Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5. I originally was in love with this book when I read it my senior year of undergrad, but now, with a more informed and critical lens I find it to be lacking in the development of its theoretical interrogation. Maybe it’s not underdeveloped but it just seems so surface level sometimes. Mary L. Gray’s book precedes this one by a year and did a lot more interesting, and arguably more useful, theory creation surrounding rurality than this book did (which is weird because Gray’s is an ethnography and this is cultural studies). I’m still forever grateful for this work piquing my interest in rural studies and pushing me towards a PhD, but I do think it leaves something in the rough that I’m searching for.

[Eliot Fiend]

is this the only, or one of very few, books on rural queers? for that, i'm glad it exists...will have to return to this one.