My New QED Piece on Queer Theory and the Neoliberal University: We Were There, We Are Here, Where Are We?

We are here, we were there. We were never going shopping.

I just published an article titled, “We Were There, We Are Here, Where Are We?: Notes Toward A Study of Queer Theory in the Neoliberal University” in the journal QED. You can read the pdf here.

An excerpt:

“In 2008, the economic crisis hit and things at UIC took a turn for the worse. I still had friends and colleagues at the University and was there often for talks and meetings. I knew things were bad when they stopped dispensing paper towels in the bathrooms (and then years later that things were better when they restocked the machines). When it comes to the fortunes of public universities, there is much to be said for data analysis and crunching numbers. And there is much to be said for paying attention to those little signs that warn you things are not going well: the feel of the toilet paper, the availability or lack thereof of paper towels, the anxiety in main offices if you look like you’re about to walk away with a cheap Bic pen.”

And here is another:

“This is how I remember it, a band of queers jumping up and down and screaming that we were queer, that we weren’t going to support war, among thousands of people, asserting our queerness in the midst of it all. There is, somewhere, a scene from a film that might appear in the future, or at least the spool from within my mind that plays like a movie scene. It felt exhilarating, it felt necessary, and it would eventually pass into memory, lodged somewhere like a cinematic clip: We are here, we were there. We were never going shopping.”

You can read the pdf here.