Queering the Countryside: New Frontiers in Rural Queer Studies

Intersections: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Genders and Sexualities

by Mary L. Gray (Editor), Colin R. Johnson (Editor), Brian J. Gilley (Editor)

Rural queer experience is often hidden or ignored, and presumed to be alienating, lacking, and incomplete without connections to a gay culture that exists in an urban elsewhere. Queering the Countryside offers the first comprehensive look at queer desires found in rural America from a genuinely multi-disciplinary perspective.

This collection of original essays confronts the assumption that queer desires depend upon urban life for meaning. By considering rural queer life, the contributors challenge readers to explore queer experiences in ways that give greater context and texture to modern practices of identity formation. The book's focus on understudied rural spaces throws into relief the overemphasis of urban locations and structures in the current political and theoretical work on queer sexualities and genders.

Queering the Countryside highlights the need to rethink notions of the closet and coming out and the characterizations of non-urban sexualities and genders as isolated and in need of outreach. Contributors focus on a range of topics, some obvious, some delightfully unexpected, from the legacy of Matthew Shepard, to how heterosexuality is reproduced at the 4-H Club, to a look at sexual encounters at a truck stop, to a queer reading of The Wizard of Oz. A journey into an unexplored slice of life in rural America, Queering the Countryside offers a unique perspective on queer experience in the modern United States and Canada.

Genres: LGBT, Queer, Nonfiction, Theory, Essays, History, Gender and Sexuality

416 pages, Paperback

Published March 15, 2016

About the author

Mary L. Gray is a Professor of Communication and Culture at the University of Indiana.

Reviews

[Autumn Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, great content! Admittedly, I did not read the book for recreational purposes. I am a graduate student writing a paper on LGBTQ+ archiving in the rural South, and found the information/case studies to be very helpful!

I do echo the concerns of others that have reviewed the book saying it was written for the academic community, creating an access issue for the general public. Maybe one day someone will write a book for those outside of the world of academia...

[Devon H · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much too dry to be accessible for those outside of academia, which is unfortunate as I feel there may be interesting things among these pages that are simply not written in a way to keep the interest of readers going.

[Elena Gorney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with reviews stating the language used in the book is inaccessible outside of the realm of academia. Given that the book is a combination of academic articles, though, I understand why the language is used. Some of the articles were more accessible (and more interesting to me) than others. I read the book because I took two classes taught by Colin Johnson in college and remember him talking about rural queer studies, which I thought was interesting. My favorite sections were those by Kelly Baker, Gabriel N. Rosenburg, LaToya E. Eaves, Mark Hain, Carly Thomsen, and John Howard.

[Cait Kane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book and I would recommend it though be aware it is academically written so may not be accessible to all. It takes work to read it but there are some extremely interesting concepts within.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the chapters in this text are incomprehensible and loaded with linguistic and philosophical jargon. The ethnographs of LGBTQ identity in rural areas was what I was most interested in, and those sections were great.

[Jessica Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent gesture toward the rich work there is to be done on queer rural life beyond our assertion that we are here!!!!!

[ReD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read from 2021-2024 for dissertation, dates not accurate

[Astrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[H. Givens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly skimmed -- I kind of hated a lot of it, to be honest. It's full of postmodern hipster-y jargon and I just wasn't about it. I don't think it succeeds in defining some whole new field of rural queerness like the introduction says, in actual fact it's not much different from any other queer history essay collection. However, some of the individual essays are very good, and I imagine any queer historian would find some points of overlap and be interested in a few essays here. I particularly liked John Howard's "Digital Oral History and the Limits of Gay Sex," which actually does outline something new and awesome I'd never heard mentioned before: doing "oral history" interviews online, in chatrooms. It's a way to get the histories everyone complains about not having, when in-person oral histories are so often limited to middle-class white organizers.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great sampling of the exciting work being done where queer studies and rural studies intersect.