Deep Dive: Books and Articles
Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique, by Roderick A. Ferguson
Roderick A. Ferguson analyzes how sociologists articulate theories of racial difference by using theories of sexuality. Ferguson demonstrates that predominantly white sociologists have used works by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and other African American writers to construct theories about Black sexualities and therefore Black people (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).
Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where “Black” Meets “Queer,” by Kathryn Bond Stockton
In this Lambda Literary Award finalist and Modern Language Association’s Crompton-Noll Award winner for best essay in gay and lesbian studies, Stockton analyzes the embracing of shame among Black and queer people and the role of shame in fostering attraction, the arts, storytelling and recording of history, and camp (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).
Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left: A History of the Impossible, by Malik Gaines
Malik Gaines expands on Butler’s theory of performativity by depicting how artists, musicians, playwrights, and actors perform race, Black political ideas, and resistance politics to disrupt mainstream views of race, gender, and sexuality. Because queer theory focuses on the interruption, disruption, and decentering of whiteness and on patriarchy, heteronormativity, homonormativity, and cisnormativity, this is a must read (New York: New York University Press, 2017).
Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability, by Robert McRuer
Robert McRuer is one of the founders of queer disability studies and a major contributor to the fields of transnational queer theory and disability theory. In this book he coins “crip theory” to describe the intersection of disability, gender, and sexuality and an interdisciplinary approach to critical disability theory, which encompasses queer theory. McRuer examines how dominant and marginal physical and sexual identities are constructed, and he demonstrates through popular culture, politics, and higher education how disabilities and queerness disrupt and transform those identities (New York: New York University Press, 2006).
Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People, by Viviane K. Namaste
Winner of the Gustavus Myers Center / Study of Human Rights Outstanding Book Award, this book provides the first scholarly study of trans people. In it, Namaste argues that trans people are erased rather than produced in a wide variety of institutional and cultural settings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Also, Namaste talks about the book and the struggles of transgender people in society in an interview (http://newsocialist.org/old_mag/magazine/39/article04.html).
Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class, and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics, by Urvashi Vaid
Urvashi Vaid is a frequently cited attorney and leader of LGBTQ+ social justice movements. She applies queer theory to her activism and advocacy, pursuing the notion that LGBTQ+ equality will be achieved once heteronormativity and homonormativity within the institutions of family, society, and government are interrupted, disrupted, and decentered to become more inclusive of racial, gender, and economic diversity (New York: Magnus Books, 2012).
My New Gender Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving World Peace through Gender Anarchy and Sex Positivity, by Kate Bornstein
Kate Bornstein is a famous author, playwright, performance artist, actress, and gender theorist. She was one of the first people to publicly identify as transgender, then later as nonbinary and gender nonconforming. Her updated version of the classic My Gender Workbook (1997) is an accessible, humorous, and interactive introduction to contemporary gender theory, as well as the intersection of gender, sexuality, and power (New York: Routledge, 2013).
Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
This anthology of essays explores the concept and act of passing, critiquing the visible and invisible systems of power involved in this performance (Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. 2006). Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is also the author of the influential That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (New York: Soft Skull Press, 2004) and Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2012).
“The Normalization of Queer Theory,” by David Halperin
David Halperin traces the origin of the term queer theory to Teresa de Lauretis in 1990 in this 2003 article in the Journal of Homosexuality (volume 45, numbers 2–4; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8980528_The_Normalization_of_Queer_Theory). He identifies major contributors to a canon of works that built up the theory. Halperin is cofounder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies.
Queer: A Graphic History, by Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele
Meg-John Barker, an academic and activist, teamed up with the cartoonist Jules Scheele in this nonfiction graphic novel to illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action (London: Icon Books, 2016).
Queer Theory and the Jewish Question, edited by Daniel Boyarin, Daniel Itzkovitz, and Ann Pellegrini
This book is the first compilation of essays to address the intersection of queer theory with Jewish identity, homophobia, and anti-Semitism and the invention of the homosexual and the modern Jew. The book includes essays written by Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. The editors are scholars and authors of Jewish studies, queer theory, and religious studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).
“Queer Theory for Everyone: A Review Essay,” by Sharon Marcus
This 2005 article in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (volume 31, number 1; https://doi.org/10.1086/432743) covers the history of queer theory and gives an overview of its origins. It explains the problematic and complicated histories of library classification of queer texts and includes an excellent bibliography of queer theorists.
Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer, by Riki Wilchins
The influential transgender activist Riki Wilchins wrote this classic work to make queer theory and gender theory accessible to a nonacademic audience. It is a starting point for first-year undergraduates (New York: Riverdale Avenue Books, 2014).
“Queer Theory Revisited,” by Michael Hames-García
This frequently cited essay challenges queer theorists to apply the theory to address the oppression, policing, and marginalization of people of color, the poor, and the colonized. Hames-García is the first to identify two schools of queer theory: the separatist, which keeps race, class, and gender outside descriptions of sexuality, and the integrationist, which blurs these categories and may abandon the concept of identity altogether. His essay is included in Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader, edited by M. Hames-García and E. J. Martínez (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 19–45, which won the 2011 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Anthology.
Sexual Futures, Queer Futures, and Other Latina Longings, by Juana Maria Rodríguez
Rodríguez deconstructs the archetype of the gesturing emotional Latina femme to discuss how gestures and types of bodies inform sexual pleasures and practices, as well as racialized sexual and gender identities (New York: New York University Press, 2014). This book won the Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize presented by the Gay Lesbian Queer Caucus of the Modern Language Association and was finalist for the 2015 Lambda Literary Foundation LGBT Studies Award. Rodríguez is also author of Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces (New York: New York University Press, 2003).
A View from the Bottom: Asian American Masculinity and Sexual Representation, by Tan Hoang Nguyen
Tan Hoang Nguyen reassesses male effeminacy and how it is racialized in cinema, art, and pornography. Nguyen challenges the concept of bottom as passive and shameful, transforming it into a sexual position, a social alliance, a romantic bond, and an art form. According to Nguyen, this reinvention of the term bottom has the potential to interrupt, disrupt, and transform sexual, gender, and racial norms (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014).
