Book Description

Until now, queer theory has largely been silent about questions of race, especially when considered in an international context. Much postcolonial theory has been silent about questions regarding gender and sexuality. This special issue of Social Text explores the relations between race and queer sexuality by focusing on the politics of transgression in a transnational world. In the first section of this issue, Race and Queer Sexuality, international authors address topics ranging from Asian American queer identity and its relation to transnational and diasporic concerns to homophobia and its relationship to black nationalism in South Africa. Other subjects include, sexuality, race, and public space; lesbian pedagogy and the nation in Latin America; and an analysis of cross-race and cross-gender drag in the work of L.A. drag queen Vaginal Creme Davis. In the second section, The Politics of Transgression, contributors focus on transgression and its relationship to power and history. One essay explores Irish immigration in the U.S. and the Irish female body as a figure of transnational contagion and blood panic, while another focuses on Oscar Wilde, race, and queer sexuality. Other pieces include a meditation on British filmmaker and writer Derek Jarman's film, Blue. Race and Queer Sexuality confronts the limitations of prior work in queer theory while providing a starting point for discussion of race, queer sexuality, and the politics of transgression that will be part of queer theory of the future. Contributors. Judith Butler, David Eng, Licia Fiol-Mata, Judith Halberstam, Phillip Brian Harper, Neville Hoad, Rachel Holmes, Don Kulick, Tim Lawrence, Rosalind Morris, José Esteban Muñoz, Ben Singer, David Valentine, Priscilla Wald, Riki Anne Wilchins