The Sense of Brown

Perverse Modernities

by José Esteban Muñoz, Joshua Chambers-Letson (Editor), Tavia Nyong'o (Editor)

The Sense of Brown  is José Esteban Muñoz's treatise on brownness and being as well as his most direct address to queer Latinx studies. In this book, which he was completing at the time of his death, Muñoz examines the work of playwrights Ricardo Bracho and Nilo Cruz, artists Nao Bustamante, Isaac Julien, and Tania Bruguera, and singer José Feliciano, among others, arguing for a sense of brownness that is not fixed within the racial and national contours of Latinidad. This sense of brown is not about the individualized brown subject; rather, it demonstrates that for brown peoples, being exists within what Muñoz calls the brown commons—a lifeworld, queer ecology, and form of collectivity. In analyzing minoritarian affect, ethnicity as a structure of feeling, and brown feelings as they emerge in, through, and beside art and performance, Muñoz illustrates how the sense of brown serves as the basis for other ways of knowing and being in the world.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Theory, Race, LGBT, Queer Studies, Latinx

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 24, 2020

About the author

José Esteban Muñoz was a writer and scholar living in New York City. He taught at and served as chair of the department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.

Reviews

[Kel · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's good cause it's josé esteban muñoz but it is largely (and obviously) unfinished and really feels incomplete in so many ways.

[Lilian Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, talks about a ton of art pieces, movies, plays, so this is a good source of other works to look into.

[Imanol Basurto · Rating 4 out of 5]

me gusta el concepto de marronidad, creo que aterriza y fuga un debate entre desidentificación y diferencia. la marronidad es una forma afectiva/fenomenológica de prestar atención y generar comunes inestables.
me parece que la pluma de j.e.m. es por momentos demasiado reiterativa y circular. me costó trabajo entender el uso de las imágenes en su argumentación, pareciera que se refugia en ellas para sostener la radicalidad de su teoría.