As we talk about Judith Jack Halberstam’s work today, this post from Halberstam on pronouns may be helpful!

This website on Queer Punk seems interesting in relation to our class discussion on Halberstam’s work: http://www.queerpunk.org/

Lincoln Woman Attacked 

I asked around with Maria’s question about queer theory’s engagement with men who participate in same-sex activity but are not queer-identified.(Okay, I posted on Facebook, where I am “networked” witha  lot of queer theorists…) These are the recommendations I got — they include some work on bi theory as well, which might be interesting to some of you.

• You might look into the DL (Down Low), though that is particularly racialized/classed, cf. Kathryn Bond Stockton – Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where “Black” Meets “Queer”

• In addition to queer black studies (Keith Boykin, Cindy Patton, Gregory Tomso, Plummer & Porter), you might suggest bisexuality studies as an angle (Alexander & Yescavage, Clare Hemmings, Rose’s [ed.] Bisexual Horizons, M Garber’s Vice Versa, P. Rust’s Bisexuality and the challenge to lesbian politics, M. Storr’s Bisexuality). Maybe also T. Dean’s Beyond Sexuality?

• Jafari S. Allen – ¡Venceremos?: The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba

• David Eng’s “Racial Castration,” Martin Manalansan’s “Global Divas,” and Nayan Shah’s “Contagious Divides” (esp chapter 5, I think) and “Stranger Intimacy.” Each of these would also challenge gender and sexual constructions as related to processes of racialization.

• Carlos Decena, Tacit Subjects.

• There’s a bunch of stuff which interrogates QT’s relationship with bisexuality/bi theory – Steven Angelides is a good start: Angelides, S. (2006) Historicizing (Bi)Sexuality: A Rejoinder for Feminism, Gay/Lesbian Studies, and Queer Theory. Journal of Homosexuality, Vol.52, nos 1/2;

• Jane Ward writes about this. Here’s one of the essays as a PDF: http://wcuunity.wikispaces.com/file/view/Dude+Sex+Ward.pdf. Here’s another citation: “Ward, Jane. (2010). “Straight Dude Seeks Same: Mapping the Relationship between Sexual Identities, Practices, and Cultures” in Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, 3rd Edition.

• Jeffrey McCune has a book coming out from Chicago

• I suggest using some empirical stuff to get in touch with just who and what we’re identifying when we identify men who have sex with men… otherwise, note that it would be helpful to examine the great preponderance of white homosocial male cultures (including Between Men and also more recently The Hazing Reader) to place the phenomenon of male homosocial desire in a broader context of male acculturation; some of the focus on racial Others vis-a-vis queer theory occludes the intersection of same-sex desire and white cis male privilege, including the privilege of heterosexually married men who don’t identify as gay.

• These articles by Tomas Almaguer might be helpful since it’s a Latin American context that provoked your student’s interest: Tomas Almaguer “Chicano Men: A Cartography of Homosexual Identity and Behavior.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. 3(2). (Summer 1991): 75-100. Also in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, eds. Henry Abelove et al., 1993. There’s also a more recent co-authored article: Tomas Almaguer, Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, Hector Carrillo, and Carlos Decena, “Revisiting Activos and Pasivos: Towards New Cartographies of Latino and Latin American Male Same-Sex Desire” in Latino/a Sexualities: A Reader, Marysol Asencio, Ed., (New York: Rutgers University Press, 2009).

Halberstam – What’s That Smell?:

“Ferron’s songs have always been about time passing, about her place in time, her sense of her career in music as ‘moving forward by holding back.” I want to end with a closer look at one of her most famous songs, ‘Shadows on a Dime,’ to track the performances and performers who lie somewhere in between the ‘then’ of historical time and the ‘now’ of performance, the temporal drag and lag that allows some pieces of history to simply fall away and remain lost to narrative. Ferron represents what can be lost even for white lesbians in the relentless urge to universalize white lesbian culture and represent it as historically continuous” (183).

http://www.details.com/sex-relationships/sex-and-other-releases/200703/meet-the-mandingos

I came across this article and felt that it was very interesting.

The HIV Shame Game

One of my friends posted this video on Facebook.  While it is funny, I think that it makes an important point.  I confess that I have asked a similar question.  Instead of asking why does a woman dress like a man if she is attracted to women, I have asked if you are attracted to women why are you with someone who looks masculine.  Yet, I can not help but think that what many, including myself, associate with femininity is a social construct.  What is a beautiful woman? What is a handsome man? Can we exchange the adjectives?

Video About Appearance And Attraction

The Queer Umbrella: Responses to what it means to be Queer

I came across this short animated video and thought it would be great to share with the class. : )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zrpxMI5gJg&sns=fb

And it comes with a “toolkit” to solicit discussion of the themes — what a great teaching aid!