Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora, and Black Studies

by Rinaldo Walcott

Queer Returns returns us to the scene of multiculturalism, diaspora, and queer through the lens of Black expression, identity, and the political. The essays question what it means to live in a multicultural society, how diaspora impacts identity and culture, and how the categories of queer and Black and Black queer complicate the political claims of multiculturalism, diaspora, and queer politics.

Genres: Nonfiction, Canada, Queer, LGBT, Gender and Sexuality, Race, Theory

243 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 28, 2017

About the author

Rinaldo Walcott is a Professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto, author of Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora, and Black Studies, and coauthor of BlackLife: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom.

Reviews

[Angelica LeMinh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one took a minute, but academic essays are always a bit dense. I think I have conditioned my mind towards fast food media consumption a wee bit, so no knocks against the form at all, just my exposure to it.

I enjoyed the discussion about Marlon Riggs' Black is...Black Ain't, because I did experience a part of that exhibition in person in Detroit a decade ago. I'm not sure I knew at that point that it was a statement on queer identity, but I think I did learn that in the years that have passed.

Hanif Abdurraquib did an episode of Essential Tremors, citing a song by Bruce Springsteen as one that has inspired him, because of its evidence as an artist aware of his own mortality, writing his own eulogy, and I can't help but connect that intention here.

The links between lynching, photography and Abu Ghraib were also provocative, and I'm sure that I will be changed forever thinking about that.