August was a busy month. Having finally given up hope of somehow putting together a decent computer from borrowed bits and having struggled for weeks on a combination of an Ipad and a laptop that needed to be rebooted every twenty minutes, I finally set up a fundraiser. My thanks to the many people who stepped up so generously and helped me reach my goal so quickly.
If you donated, you should have received my email thanking you and providing directions on how to begin your forever Toby subscription. If you’ve had any trouble subscribing, please let me know and please remember to email me your username so I know who you are on the back end. Something like “Bumblebeedumbledum” might be a nifty user name, but it doesn’t tell me who the subscriber is! And, again, thank you!
Work I Wrote, or Was Mentioned In
September 2: I published my “Stop Fetishising Youth Organisers.”
August 21: I was hugely, hugely proud and excited to write my first piece for Electronic Intifada, a review of Joseph Massad’s new book, Islam in Liberalism, titled “How Liberalism Creates Islam as Its Enemy.”
And then, to my huge surprise and delight, the review was translated into French, as “Comment le progressisme fabrique l’Islam comme son ennemi” on Etat d’Exception, August 25.
August 22: I wrote this short piece, “The Dude’s Response to the Salaita Case.”
August 23: I published this, about Terry Gross and Toni Morrison on Race, or Not.
August 25: When news of the Rentboy raid broke, I was, frankly, furious, and wrote this, “Rentboy, Sex Panics, Feminism, and More.”
August 30: Emmy Östlund of the queer Swedish feminist blog Den Queerfeministiska Oasen, translated my 2010 piece on queers and immigration, “What’s Left of Queer?” Given all the turmoil around migrants/refugees into Europe, I’m happy to see that my work lends itself to the conversations going on. You can read “Vad Är Vänster om Queer? Migration, Sexualitet och Känslosamhet i en Nyliberal Värld” on their website.
Here’s the English original, “What’s Left of Queer: Immigration, Sexuality, and Affect in a Neoliberal World.”
September 1: Mike Ludwig interviewed me for this Truthout piece about Rentoby. As I predicted, the mainstream press is doing a better job than the gay press in covering the matter and it’s a very thorough report, titled “Beyond Rentboy: Will the LGBT Movement Really Fight for Sex Worker Rights.”
Things I read
Ryan Conrad, one of my best beloveds and comrades, was interviewed about his current research project, and the piece contains some fascinating revelations about queer history.
Freddie deBoer wrote this piece on trauma, which is worth reading.
Sarah Jaffe interviewed Robin D. G. Kelley for The Nation.
Gregor Baszak interviewed Cedric Johnson for Platypus. I’ve bookmarked this for reading, along with the Jaffe interview.
The Lana Turner journal produced this excellent piece in response to some furore over the notion of “literary activism.”
Scientists think octupuses (who are apparently not octupi when in a group) are so strange they might as well be alien. And they have three hearts. One seems trouble enough.
I haven’t yet read the book, but Steven Silberman’s NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity seems fascinating, and I’ll be checking it out soon.
Joel Golby wrote this lovely, hilarious piece for Vice, “We Are All the Taiwanese Kid Who Punched a Hole in a 1.5 million Painting.” It’s one of those pieces I wish I’d written, but I’m glad he did.
From the Archives
Freddie’s piece reminded me of my own ruminations on trauma, some of which you can glean in this interview I did with Michael Kinnucan of Hypocrite Reader, “The Ideal Neoliberal Subject Is the Subject of Trauma.”
September 1 marked the sudden and tragic death of Bernard Baran a year ago, and this piece by JoAnn Wypijewsky, “How Feminists and Liberals Enabled the Modern Police State” is both a tribute to him and a reminder for us to keep our eyes on the ever-expanding prison industrial complex.
And finally, this one’s for all my friends trying not to scream at the inevitable questions throughout the semester.
