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Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology
While over the past decade a number of scholars have done significant work on questions of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered identities, this volume is the first to collect this groundbreaking work and make black queer studies visible as a developing field of study in the United States. Bringing together essays by established and emergent scholars, this collection assesses the strengths and weaknesses of prior work on race and sexuality and highlights the theoretical and political issues at stake in the nascent field of black queer studies. Including work by scholars based in English, film studies, black studies, sociology, history, political science, legal studies, cultural studies, and performance studies, the volume showcases the broadly interdisciplinary nature of the black queer studies project.The contributors consider representations of the black queer body, black queer literature, the pedagogical implications of black queer studies, and the ways that gender and sexuality have been glossed over in black studies and race and class marginalized in queer studies. Whether exploring the closet as a racially loaded metaphor, arguing for the inclusion of diaspora studies in black queer studies, considering how the black lesbian voice that was so expressive in the 1970s and 1980s is all but inaudible today, or investigating how the social sciences have solidified racial and sexual exclusionary practices, these insightful essays signal an important and necessary expansion of queer studies.
Contributors. Bryant K. Alexander, Devon Carbado, Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Keith Clark, Cathy Cohen, Roderick A. Ferguson, Jewelle Gomez, Phillip Brian Harper, Mae G. Henderson, Sharon P. Holland, E. Patrick Johnson, Kara Keeling, Dwight A. McBride, Charles I. Nero, Marlon B. Ross, Rinaldo Walcott, Maurice O. Wallace
Contributors. Bryant K. Alexander, Devon Carbado, Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Keith Clark, Cathy Cohen, Roderick A. Ferguson, Jewelle Gomez, Phillip Brian Harper, Mae G. Henderson, Sharon P. Holland, E. Patrick Johnson, Kara Keeling, Dwight A. McBride, Charles I. Nero, Marlon B. Ross, Rinaldo Walcott, Maurice O. Wallace
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
E. Patrick Johnson
17 books67 followersE. Patrick Johnson (Ph.D.) is an African-American performance artist, ethnographer, and scholar.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 28, 2018
Some of my favorite essays in this collection:
QUARE” STUDIES, OR (ALMOST) EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT QUEER STUDIES I LEARNED FROM MY GRANDMOTHER by E. Patrick Johnson.
PUNKS, BULLDAGGERS, AND WELFARE QUEENS: THE RADICALPOTENTIAL OF QUEER POLITICS? by Cathy J. Cohen.
BUT SOME OF US ARE BRAVE LESBIANS:THE ABSENCE OF BLACK LESBIAN FICTION by Jewelle Gomez.
ROBERT O’HARA’S INSURRECTION:“ QUE( E) RYING” HISTORY by Faedra Chatard Carpenter.
If I had one criticism it would be this: academics often use every obscure word they know to only simply explain what they mean using more common words in the following paragraphs. It would be much less of a headache to read—and intimidating to read—if they were to use more accessible language from the start. When I first bought this text, I was so exhausted from trying to understand a single sentence, I almost didn’t come back to the text. I am glad I did, but most people I know wouldn’t even bother. And I understand that writers often have a certain audience in mind when writing—which dictates the structure and language used.
However, what is the point of writing in a way that only excludes most people outside of the Academy—who would probably benefit from this knowledge the most because certain isms have locked them out? Stated another way, it annoys me when academics gate keep knowledge and instead of making it more accessible choose to engage in a sort of “Academic circle jerk.” Sometimes, Google is not enough because it just offers “common” definitions of words, not the context in which the writer is writing the group of words—which often alters their meanings beyond “common” definitions. That is why I only rated this text as four stars.
QUARE” STUDIES, OR (ALMOST) EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT QUEER STUDIES I LEARNED FROM MY GRANDMOTHER by E. Patrick Johnson.
PUNKS, BULLDAGGERS, AND WELFARE QUEENS: THE RADICALPOTENTIAL OF QUEER POLITICS? by Cathy J. Cohen.
BUT SOME OF US ARE BRAVE LESBIANS:THE ABSENCE OF BLACK LESBIAN FICTION by Jewelle Gomez.
ROBERT O’HARA’S INSURRECTION:“ QUE( E) RYING” HISTORY by Faedra Chatard Carpenter.
If I had one criticism it would be this: academics often use every obscure word they know to only simply explain what they mean using more common words in the following paragraphs. It would be much less of a headache to read—and intimidating to read—if they were to use more accessible language from the start. When I first bought this text, I was so exhausted from trying to understand a single sentence, I almost didn’t come back to the text. I am glad I did, but most people I know wouldn’t even bother. And I understand that writers often have a certain audience in mind when writing—which dictates the structure and language used.
However, what is the point of writing in a way that only excludes most people outside of the Academy—who would probably benefit from this knowledge the most because certain isms have locked them out? Stated another way, it annoys me when academics gate keep knowledge and instead of making it more accessible choose to engage in a sort of “Academic circle jerk.” Sometimes, Google is not enough because it just offers “common” definitions of words, not the context in which the writer is writing the group of words—which often alters their meanings beyond “common” definitions. That is why I only rated this text as four stars.
July 23, 2024
I’ve lived less than an hour's drive from arguably the most well-known gay neighborhood in the U.S.---the SF Castro District. In Marlon Rigg’s Tongues Untied, he describes the contradiction of walking down the ‘welcoming’ queer streets of the Castro district, but his Blackness causing him to feel like ‘an alien, unseen, and seen, unwanted’. 1950s suburbanization and its white flight were merely queered and replicated twenty years later in the 1970s gay neighborhood formation. The formation of these gay neighborhoods resulted in gentrification that often displaced Black residents. Charles Nero asks, why is gay neighborhood formation primarily a white and male phenomenon? Why are the gay ghettos white?
This piece had a particularly interesting look into Faubourg Marigny—a white gay neighborhood in New Orleans. It was formed by a wealthy white gay architect who networked with other middle and upper-class gay men to encourage gay gentrification and also helped lower-class white gays secure housing and integrate into the middle class. Black gays were excluded from the networks of middle-class gay men, and thus, were not afforded the opportunity to live in Faubourg Marigny. Suburbanization is a strategy for wealth accumulation…. And homogeneity is highly valued. Nero cleverly connects this racial exclusion to Hill Collins’s theory of controlling images—describing how caricatures of black homosexuality provide ideological support for the exclusion of black gay men in queer communities and cultures.
Aside from this piece, I also enjoyed Cohen’s Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens. And, learned an awesome acronym…QUASH, which was a Chicago activist group that stands for Queers United Against Straight-Acting Homosexuals.
This piece had a particularly interesting look into Faubourg Marigny—a white gay neighborhood in New Orleans. It was formed by a wealthy white gay architect who networked with other middle and upper-class gay men to encourage gay gentrification and also helped lower-class white gays secure housing and integrate into the middle class. Black gays were excluded from the networks of middle-class gay men, and thus, were not afforded the opportunity to live in Faubourg Marigny. Suburbanization is a strategy for wealth accumulation…. And homogeneity is highly valued. Nero cleverly connects this racial exclusion to Hill Collins’s theory of controlling images—describing how caricatures of black homosexuality provide ideological support for the exclusion of black gay men in queer communities and cultures.
Aside from this piece, I also enjoyed Cohen’s Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens. And, learned an awesome acronym…QUASH, which was a Chicago activist group that stands for Queers United Against Straight-Acting Homosexuals.
February 23, 2020
Ngl, I didn't finish this book to its entirety. I had about 20 more pages to read but just couldn't get through the rest of it. It's weird because there were parts of it in which I really enjoyed the content and didn't want to put it down, while for other parts i was like "What is it trying to say?" I think the problem lies in the fact that it's a multi-authored book and I enjoyed the writing style of some authors more than others. It gave me a lot of amazing book recommendations and documentaries. It was correct in talking about how the gay rights movement has been largely exclusive to black people.
November 3, 2019
I stared reading this book to get ideas for my Intro to Women’s Studies class and although the articles were dense and I couldn’t read more than one at a time I enjoyed it. I particularly enjoyed articles by E. Patrick Johnson, Marlon B Ross, Devon W. Carbado and Charles I. Nero which I would give 5 stars. I would have liked more theory by lesbians and trans individuals to be included, the articles written by women focused on literary theory so I largely skim-read those.
May 4, 2022
Cathy Cohen is so smart
April 17, 2020
Dense, but a very good look at black queer issues.
November 11, 2008
The essays in this book interrogate the meaning of "queer" as used in queer theory as it applies to the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people of color. While some of the authors identify with the term "queer," all of them reveal the ways in which queer theory has been the theory of white queers. The all-embracing, identity-dissolving thrust of queer theory elide the experiences of black queers for whom identity and identity politics have been a means of survival. By seeking to be a universal theory of fluid sexuality, queer theory has failed to attend to the materiality of the embodied sexuality of queers of color. This volume is a much needed corrective.
August 13, 2008
Excellent. A total unpacking and foray into the still hybrid program of academia between Black or Africana Studies and Queer Studies. BQS is an anthology of several essays exploring simple questions that deserve answers: What does it mean to be both, simultaneously, black and non-heterosexual? In a dominantly white, heterosexist patriarchal society (aka America) how does the black queer body react to this world, express its sexuality when its considered deviant twice (for being black, for being queer); how does it move, let alone survive?
July 28, 2011
I only read one of the essays here, but it was a very interesting essay. It didn't contribute a tremendous amount of direct material to the thesis research I'm doing, but it added a different perspective, which will play a role in my thesis.
December 16, 2008
this b00k rulez!
May 18, 2010
Very good , should be thought in all University
February 7, 2016
A wide range of subjects (politics, teaching, literature, personal narrative...). Important and engaging.
June 28, 2016
Definitely a good read... but I was yearning for more though.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews