Category: Queer Politics, Culture, and History

American Gay: Pete Buttigieg and the Politics of Forgetting

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date June 18, 2019

Excerpt: The problem with Pete Buttigieg is not that he is homonormative or assimilationist, but that he represents a new will to forgetfulness on the part of the United States, a will embedded in a desire to recreate not just this country but the world in the cast of a new, gayer imperialism.

Chicago Chronicles Gay Marriage Queer Politics, Culture, and History Reporting

“Forget Stonewall,” in The Gay and Lesbian Review

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date April 27, 2019

The point in forgetting Stonewall is to hold on to the much more difficult task of thinking about “event-ness” and history in more complicated ways.

Capitalism, Class, Inequality On Books and Publishing Queer Politics, Culture, and History

Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Review of Gay Inc

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date February 20, 2019

The nonprofit world runs on the fumes of exhaustion, desperate hope, and a general sense of futility exuded by its denizens.

Capitalism, Class, Inequality Feminism Gay Marriage On Books and Publishing Queer Politics, Culture, and History Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Polyamory Is Gay Marriage for Straight People

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date February 15, 2019

Excerpt: The problem with relationships is not that individuals engage in them in particular ways, but that systems compel individuals to relate to each other in particular ways.

Film, Art, Television, and Media Queer Politics, Culture, and History

Jason Momoa, Aquaman, and the Queer Art of Friendship

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date January 29, 2019

Excerpt: If “queer” means anything, and if we queers have given anything to the world, it’s a combination of sex and love that stretches the imagination and the concept of friendship.

Capitalism, Class, Inequality Feminism Film, Art, Television, and Media Queer Politics, Culture, and History Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Your Trauma Is Your Passport: Hannah Gadsby, Nanette, and Global Citizenship

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date November 20, 2018

Excerpt: Nanette assures viewers, especially straight ones, that queers and women can and must be understood and assimilated by first understanding us as uniquely and literally broken and bashed in.

Academia Queer Politics, Culture, and History

On Judith Butler and the MLA

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date September 5, 2018

Nothing that Judith Butler represents is so fragile that it cannot survive without her.

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Academia Film, Art, Television, and Media Queer Politics, Culture, and History Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Asia Argento and Avital Ronell Or, Humans Are the Worst People

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date August 22, 2018

Naming power isn’t really enough if the primary aim is to simply shift power around, and #MeToo’s supporters and “leaders” haven’t really done all that much to change that conversation.

Capitalism, Class, Inequality Prison industrial complex Queer Politics, Culture, and History Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Inclusion in the Atrocious, with Eli Massey

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date March 8, 2018

It is perverse to make people participate in an institution they deplore in order to access resources that should be guaranteed to all.

The Face of War, 1940 - 1941 - Salvador Dali

Capitalism, Class, Inequality Chicago Chronicles Labour Politics Queer Politics, Culture, and History Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Bitches of Capitalism: My Speech on International Working Women’s Day, March 8

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date March 17, 2017

I was invited by the Chicago Socialist Party to speak about and on International Working Women’s Day, March 8. My thanks to all the organisers, and to the many amazing people who showed up — and stayed — through all my words and those of my co-presenters, Tobita Chow, Erica Nanton, Red Schulte, Zerlina Smith, and Rehmah Sufi.* You can watch a video here; below is the text of the speech.