Chapter Two of Donald Hall's book--"Who and What is 'Queer'"?--is admittedly a bit more theoretical, abstract, dense even, and might be introducing you to a body of scholarship that you might be unfamiliar with and even find difficult to understand fully. To help me understand the sense you're making (or lack thereof) of this reading, I'd like you to do two things:
As always, aim for at least 250 words in your comment. I look forward to seeing what you have to say, and don't worry, we'll return to some of these definitions and questions next week in class.
- First, in your own words, share a definition or characteristic of the word "queer" from the reading that resonates most powerfully with you. Then, include a quotation or brief passage from the text (with page number) that you can point to as evidence of how Hall is defining this term.
- Second, identify a passage that confused you or that seemed a little tricky to understand (and include it in your comment with a page number). What do you think Hall (or the author he cites) is saying in this passage? What questions do you have about it? What doesn't make sense to you?
As always, aim for at least 250 words in your comment. I look forward to seeing what you have to say, and don't worry, we'll return to some of these definitions and questions next week in class.
1.) From the reading, it showed me how the word “queer” could be used as a way to challenge what is considered “normal”. Moreover, “queer” can be a label for anyone who rejects the “cultural norms” around sexulity or their gender identity. Throughout the chapter, Hall mentions Michel Foucault and how Foucault was the “central figure for not only queer academics but also for activist” due to his theories (Hall, 66). Because of Foucault and his theories, I think Hall defines “queer” as rejecting the binaries when then allows non-conformist to create their own identities. Furthermore, Halls argues that “queer” was a concept that “came from activist and was appropriated by academics” and it should not be used lightly or for consumer culture (Hall, 80).
ReplyDelete2.) A passage that I found confusing came from Helene Cixous. The passage states, “Cixous most intriguing challenge is a call for a ‘reconsidersation of bisexaulity,’ by which she means ‘the location within oneself of the presence of both sexes, evident and insistent in different ways according to the individual, the nonexclusion of difference or of a sex, and starting with this permission one gives oneself, the multiplication of the effects of desire’s inscription on every part of the body and other body’...Cixous evokes the possibility of mutable sexual relationships and selfhood without prescribing what form desire might take from a deconstruction of the hetero/homosexual binary” (Hall, 63-64). What is I think Cixous is saying is to consider bisexuality and how it’s possible for people’s sexuality to change over time; this then can change a person’s identity. I’m having trouble understanding what is meant by “the multiplication of every part of the body”. From this passage, I wonder how Helene Cixous would feel about the term pansexual and how that would play out in this context.
You're on the right track with your thinking about Cixous, for she is talking about the radical openness and possibility that bisexuality might be said to signify. To think about it in terms of our more contemporary term pansexual is a productive way of thinking about it, although Cixous probably wasn't thinking about gender as fluidly as she was about sexuality. The multiplication sentence really has to do, in my mind, with an openness to the ways in which two bodies (of either sex or gender) can embody and inscribe desire in ways that defy our normative way of experiencing them.
DeleteAfter completing the reading, one characteristic I would use when it comes to describing the word “queer” is broad. I understand the term not as a complete spectrum, but not as something with a simple definition. Of course, the theories created around the term have changed over time, yet the message I received from Hall is that it cannot be explained easily. I understood that point event more after this piece of text from Eve Sedgwick from her work, Tendencies:
ReplyDelete“...’queer’ can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality, are made (or can’t be made) to signify monolithically. (8).” (70).
Before the text from Sedwick, I was kind of confused by this quote from Michael Warner’s book, Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory, at the beginning of the reading:
“‘Queer’ represents, among other things, an aggressive impulse of generalization; it rejects a minoritizing logic of toleration or simple political interest representation in favor of a more thorough resistance to regimes of the normal… (xxvi).” (Hall 55-56). What doesn’t make sense to me is the language behind the text. It comes off as harsh somehow, and so I am curious if Warner wrote this to judge “queerness” or if it actually meant to be educational without judgment? Hall could have put the resource in to have the reader’s try to understand the various definitions or theories on “queerness.”
Yes, it can be (on purpose) hard to pin down what this word queer means. But your use of Sedgwick's quote is telling, for it does lead us to embrace possibilities and mismatches. For Warner, he's not judging queerness, for he, too, embraces its possibilities. For him, it's less important that it's tied to sexual identity and more important to resisting norms. He also doesn't favor embracing it as a minority identity, or at least a more traditional minority position that would then advocate politically for tolerance. He wants a more thorough transformation of the norms that mark queerness as so bad to begin to with.
DeleteThe word queer is used by people of the LGBTQIA+ community as a way of describing identities that may include sexualities, gender identities and more. It is a word that has been taken back from its former hurtful meaning to celebrate one’s own identity and expression. Foucault’s definition of queer was a good way of defining it and really clearly explains it in my opinion. He wrote, “…queer identity need not be grounded in any positive truth or stable reality…Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant.” (on Page 67). I think it helps explain the word to someone that is not familiar of its meaning when it comes to LGBTQIA+ people. However, I do think it is a very simple definition. It helps someone understand the word at a base level, but it does not explain the nuances or uniqueness of the way the community uses it.
ReplyDeleteI think the excerpt from Judith Butler was interesting and I would like to discuss more. She wrote, “..gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original.” I think this is really interesting and would like to discuss it more. Does she mean that in our performance of gender we are all trying to reach an ideal that doesn’t really exist or that we will never really reach? I want to know what Judith Butler though about performing gender and why it might be hurtful to people in many different ways. I am also curious about what she might say to those that take pride in their gender expression and believe themselves to be very feminine or very masculine.
Good questions, and I, too, hope we'll take some time to reflect on this passage from Butler. I think you're glossing her correctly for the most part. That is, she would say this is true for heterosexual/heteronormative gender identities and expressions, especially those which perform these ideals unknowingly. Normative notions of masculinity and femininity aspire to be something that isn't essentially real, but an imitation of this unreal imaginary thing that we think is real. We can talk more about your last question, but one way to think about it would be that there might not be harm in expressing more traditional or normative genders, as long as I or others don't invest it with transcendent meaning.
DeleteI think I noted some similar sentiment concerning the definitional cautions associated with queer and queerness in one of the past comments I constructed: Queerness cannot--as if by some ontological constraint--be understood by a lens of austerity and rigidness in lexicon; it must always be the case that queerness is understood as a rejection of normality, more acutely--gender and sexual normality. Again, though, I present another caution, of sorts. To understood queerness as negative and rejectionist in nature—though helpful, no doubt—can fare as too reductionist. The element of queerness risks being characterized as non-proactive in this sense. I believe that a semblance of radical activism and proactive will is also associated, on some level, with queerness. I enjoy the passage from Arendt in Hall's text that reads, "Can we not in the resonances of queer protest an objection to the normalization of behavior in this broad sense, and thus to the cultural phenomenon of socialization?? [Q]ueer . . . can be understood as protesting not just the normal behavior of the social, but the idea of normal behavior" (56).
ReplyDeleteIt is not so much the case that I do not understood the claim made, rather than it is that I find myself wanting more in the aftermath of the claim: “ ‘As with other aspects of human behavior, the concrete institutional forms of sexuality at any given time and place are products of human activity’ (4). And Rubin here usefully, if implicitly, broadens the discussion of modes of oppression to the internal politics of queer communities as well . . . “ (Rubin 04 qtd in Hall 68). I wish for the “broaden[ed] discussion” to take place. I want to question the own illiberalicies of the liberal institutions we attempt to craft and uphold.
Yes, it is important to think beyond the deconstructionist bent of a great deal of queer theory, although that is and will always be (I think) an important part of this tradition, in that we often still need to expose the fragility of the norm, for all its destructive power. I do think the section on Butler and even Sedgwick help us see how queer theory and queerness can be generative, too, opening up identificatory and political possibilities that we can act on as we attempt to create something through queerness, not just resist norms. (Or, too, perhaps Bersani's interest in intimacies that aren't intimate is another way to approach it, as paradoxical as that sentence is ...)
DeleteThe word "queer" takes on characteristics of going against the norm and not being able to have a single definition because it simply does not fit a preference while challenging the terms more commonly known. An explanation that resonated with me states, "queer revels constitute a kind of activism that attacks the dominant notion of the natural, the taboo breaker, the monstrous, the uncanny" ( Hall 55). In addition with Foucault's "homosexual identity can now be constituted not substantively but oppositionally, not by what it is but where it is and how it operates…" (Hall 67).
ReplyDeleteThis definition which defies the 'norm' of what should fit under an umbrella is reasoned by Nietzsche's perspective on knowledge on page 58 which states, "Knowledge is always constrained by one's perspective… and that perspective depends on our physiological constitution, our skills of inquiring and interpreting, our culture, and our own language." This is a key point as languages create community which at the end of the day are influenced by society. Thus, the word queer once again gives independent definition of what it means to each unique person and preference.
A passage in Hall's chapter which I do not have much background/ proper education on and would like to explore more is the section on performative drag. I had trouble understanding Butler's case against drag saying, "the project of heterosexual identity is propelled into an endless repetition of itself...can only produce the effect of its own originality" (72). I understand how genders can be performative in everyday life but I am curious on what the other side of the defense would be to those who perform drag especially on it being comforting and freeing.
Yes, Butler can be confusing ... but you're on the right track. I think what Butler's saying here is that we think that heterosexual identity imitates something original. Think of it in ways like the Platonic ideal of masculinity or femininity, which exists somewhere in the universe, or our collective consciousness, or as some ideal that we all (or are supposed to) strive for. But Butler says, actually no. This ideal is actually created by all of our repetitive acts of imitation. This ideal is actually an effect of all our acts of imitating something that doesn't actually exist. But the power of repetition and reinforcement mean that over time, we come to believe that imitation is actually the ideal. For those who perform drag, so let's say male-bodied people who then appropriate women's femininity, it can be freeing for any and all of us, for it allows us to see gender as an imitation and one that subverts the essentialness of the so-called original. (In that, we can usually tell the drag queen isn't really a woman, calling attention to our understanding of woman-ness or femininity.) Not sure if this is clarifying or more confusing, but we can talk more in class.
DeleteThroughout the reading, there were two distinct characteristics of “queer” that were explained and perhaps emphasized the most. The word “queer” cannot have a rigid, permanent definition and for that matter, opposes our notion of ‘normalcy’. Our understanding of sexuality, identity and our understanding of “normal" are social constructs. On the other hand, identity and sexuality are, in most cases, individualistic and subjective. Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins suggest that Nietzsche “insisted there is no absolute knowledge that transcends all possible perspectives: knowledge is always constrained by one’s perspective… and that perspective depends on our physiological constitution, our skills of inquiring and interpreting, our culture and our language. (35-6).” (Hall, 58). According to scholar/author Denis Altman, “the very concept of homosexuality is a social one, and one cannot understand the homosexual experience without recognizing the extent to which we have developed a certain identity and behavior derived from social norms.” Both, Nietzsche and Gayle Rubin, in a unique way argue that identity/sexuality and it’s place in society are dictated by social norms. The interconnected and subjective existence of these human experiences (sexuality, identity, and normalcy) cannot be defined in a general, one size fits all mindset.
ReplyDeleteI found the passage on André Gide and his philosophy of sexuality to be unclear. I understand that he presented sexuality in a new way, emphasizing a ‘freedom’ component. As stated in the book, “he de-links sexuality from a necessary basis in domestic or even affectional relationships.” (Hall, 61). I think I understand why Hall included André Gide’s philosophy but I would’ve liked to see a more direct and perhaps explicit connection to this notion ‘normalcy’ and identity.
Yes, Hall moves through this rather quickly. One way to think through his discussion of Gide is to think more about how in our heteronormative world, we tend to think of sex as needing to be connected to love, affection, intimacy, etc. But for a writer like Gide, sex and thus sexuality didn't connect to these other experiences. In fact, for Gide, there is an embrace of anonymity, of a sexual landscape that does not need love, in fact, prefers not to connect the two. He tends to describe a kind of physicality that is proximite, intimate, but not in an emotional way, thereby raising questions about our norms that see love and sex as deeply connected.
Delete1.) The definition of queer that resonated with me most was the definition by Michael Warner where he describes it as a form of aggressive resistance. When he says, "‘queer’ represents, among other things, an aggressive impulse of generalization; it rejects a minoritizing logic of toleration or simple political interest representation in favor of a more thorough resistance to regimes of the normal...” I interpreted it as an opposition to one's oppressor. I think this definition stuck with me because I have seen blackness defined in this way by Fanon and Aimé Césaire and I believe that allowing one's rage to push their identity to the forefront can be cathartic and productive in terms of activism and advocacy.
ReplyDelete2.) One thing I would really like clarification on is the quote on page 76 where Butler says, “If identities were no longer fixed… A new configuration of politics would surely emerge from the ruins of the old. Cultural configurations of sex and gender might then proliferate or, rather, their present proliferation might then become articulatable...” Does she mean that there is no hope for tearing down restrictive binaries, or that the socially constructed gender norms are pointless (or maybe neither)?
Warner is saying something along those lines, and even though he would share some of the same resistance to the oppressor that you're pointing out, what he resists is a bit more abstract, in that he is opposed to the norm, the state of normalcy, the idea that even having a norm is a good thing. That isn't the same thing as the oppressor, even though Warner would probably say that norms are and can be oppressive.
DeleteIn the quote that you cite from Butler, she is actually being rather optimistic. If we could learn to embrace identities that weren't so fixed, so mired in the normative repetitions that we seem obsessed with, then possibly if we could create different (queer) identities, we could then create different politics and proliferate our queerness more freely.
1- The definition of queer as "whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without essence" (Hall, Foucault p 68). This really stuck out because the word queer often is used to describe 'non-normal', however, I've never seen it used so fluidly. Queer as a fluid word allows for it to always have a place amongst the vocabulary of opposition. To be an identity without essence gives permission to the word to be used and still hold meaning and power with every new movement.
ReplyDelete2- "it is essential to separate gender and sexuality analytically to reflect more accurately their separate social existences... lesbians are oppressed as queers and perverts, by the operation of sexual, not gender, stratification' (p 67). I wanted clarification as to whether or not he thinks of gender as being able to be under the defined word queer. Since things such as genderqueer exist, would the argument then be able to change that a straight transgender man can identify as queer, but not based on sexual orientation?
Good question, and it is one that uses terms the have evolved more fully since the publication of this book (and certainly since the initial days of queer theorizing). In the quote you cite, what Hall is really emphasizing is that (vis-a-vis) Rubin, sexuality--especially non-dominant sexualities--needs to be seen as distinct from gender, even though gender and sexuality powerfully intersect. So, even though lesbians are women, and are oppressed through sexism, they are also oppressed by virtue of their sexuality (i.e., seen as perverts). I would say that yes, there are heterosexual people (of various genders) who also embrace a queer identity, too.
Delete1. When reading this chapter, the one definition that stuck out in my mind was just, “Challenging norms of gender and sexuality based off of societal expectations”. A piece of the reading that Hall uses to back up this definition of “queer” is from Helene Cixous on page 63. She discusses how humans are complex creatures and to try and just put them in these small boxes is downgrading their complexity. She says that to create great things, like poets and philosophers, you can’t be following what everyone else is doing or telling you to do or else your things won’t be as great as they could be. One important thing to point out is she says, “That does not mean that you have to be homosexual to create.” I think a misunderstanding of the word “queer” is that it is synonymous to “gay”. Which Cixous is debunking in her passage.
ReplyDelete2. There were a few passages in this chapter that I didn’t quite understand, one of them was Diana Fuss’ passage on page 71. Part of me thinks I understand the idea, but not how she’s conveying it. I think the passage is saying that as queer people, they have to now shape history because of today’s society. There’s so many questions surrounding this population that questions need to be answered and people need to be educated.
Yes, queer is very much distinct from gay (even though some gay people would also consider themselves queer), and it would help me understand your question more fully if you included the actual passage. But I think, yes, you're on the right track. She is arguing that even as we acknowledge the constructedness of our contemporary identities, we still have to respond to the current political situation using these identities, performing them even. But we shouldn't ever fool ourselves that we've reached some static final understanding or embodiment of these desires/idenitities. They will continue to evolve as history unfolds.
DeleteOne section that I resonated with in Hall’s “Who and What is ‘Queer’” is from the section on Mill. He says, “’nature’ and ‘natural’ are generally used simply to preempt and obscure objections to that which an individual ‘is already inclined to approve’ and that ‘conformity to nature has no connection whatever with right and wrong.’” (57) I like this section because it once again emphasizes that it is okay to question what is against the norm. I think that this is what I have come to understand best to define queer theory. It questions the moral basis of what is out of the norm, or in other words what is queer.
ReplyDeleteOne section that confused me is the section on Andre Gide. Hall uses the quote, “a model of intimacies devoid of intimacy. (He) proposes that we move irresponsibility among other bodies, somewhat indifferent to them, demanding nothing more than that they be as available to contact as we are, and that, no longer owned by others, they also renounce self-ownership and agree to that loss of boundaries which will allow them to be, with use, shifting points of rest in s universal and mobile communication of being. If homosexuality in this form is difficult to know, this is because it no longer defines self.” (61) I don’t quite understand how this quote helps to define who or what queer is, to me it seems as though this quote only defines what it means to have an emotionally unattached sexual relationship with another. I understand that an emotionally unattached sexual relationship can be considered out of the norm in a society that encourages sexual activity to have emotional connection as well. However, from my experience, I don’t think that it’s such a abnormal occurrence to be able to be considered queer.
Your interest in exploring how "nature" and what's "natural" can be used as a sort of cover for other moral assumptions is very important and essential to understanding queerness's resistance to the norm. Do keep in mind, though, the difference between natural and normal, for they aren't exactly the same thing. You're right, too, that the kind of intimacy that Gide describes isn't exclusive to gay men (or men who have sex with men), but when Gide wrote (mid-twentieth century), gay men could represent this kind of non-normative desire in ways others could not. In a way, you could say this is one way that queerness has become more mainstream.
DeleteQueer theory, which was born from a movement sparked by overt manifestations of heterosexism revolving around the AIDS epidemic in the ’80’s and ’90’s which brought the LGBTQ+ together to work toward short term political goals, notes a shift in the way we consider the nature of being. As the varying definitions indicate, this is a tall order that requires constant reflection, and is perhaps impossible to complete. With this ontological shift, we are called to denounce what we had been socially conditioned to believe is natural in terms of both gender and sexuality. Relatedly, as Michael Warner frames it, Queer Theory, “Gets a critical edge by defining itself against the normal rather than the heterosexual,” (56). To me this seems both exceptionally radical and surprisingly attainable. The phrasing is not alienating to oppressors, but rather calls them in for the challenge, though I am sure this is not the primary goal. Anyone who desires to can challenge what they consider normal. Furthermore, framing the heart of queer theory in this manner is inclusively of the vast array of identities relating to both gender and sexuality that do more than stray from heterosexuality. By challenging us all to question heteronormativity, cisnormativity, gender roles, and the gender binary that shape our understanding of normalcy, a subversive and inclusive theory is born. Though, as mentioned, this theory was formed in academia in response to real life events, reflecting on these events and using them to establish principles adds depth, understanding, and a kind of added motivation to the movement. The more we are able to articulate our reasoning behind challenging unjust structures, and why we find them unjust to begin with, the easier it will become to draw more people in.
ReplyDeleteNice gloss on the reading. I am curious if there were other moments that might have raised questions for you?
DeleteThe definition of queer is very extensive. The part of the definition that most clearly resonates with me, is that in its complexity, it can be taken all the way back to its simplistic definition of “not the norm”. Although that is very simply put, I think it does that definition the most justice because that definition is a part of all the complex definitions. “Queer identity need not be grounded in any positive truth or stable reality. Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant” (Hall, 67). I think the flexibility of the term is also powerful because often the people who identify as queer cannot be perfectly labeled or defined, but the generalness of the term works for them. I also like how Hall phrases that queer is “at odds”, I think it gives the term power and suggests the struggle for acceptance as not the norm.
ReplyDeleteAfter better understanding the overarching theme of normalcy, or lack of it in terms of queerness, the Andre Gide passage somewhat confuses me. I think I understand his point that relationships can be emotionally detached. What I don’t understand as well is how that contributes to Hall’s argument about the definition of clear. It feels like the excerpt was almost wrongly placed, or I am just not understanding the connection.
Yes, the resistance to the norm is very much central to how we might define queer (or at least how major thinkers like Warner has). Your basic sense of Hall's discussion of Gide is accurate, and I think it relates in that such emotionally detached desire, sex that happens outside of the context of a loving (read heteronormative relationship) is another kind of queerness. It's not just who or what we desire that can be queer (that is, men who desire men or women who desire women), but how we desire (that is, outside of the traditional monogamous relationship, etc.) that can be queer.
DeleteThe first definition of queer theory that I saw, and thought was most helpful in framing this conversation for myself throughout the reading, was brought in by de Lauretis. Who said that queer theory was, " juxtaposed to the 'lesbian and gay' of the subtitle," and was intended by de Lauretis to, "mark a certain critical distance from the latter by now established and often convenient formula," (55). To me this meant that possible the terms that were being used back then to describe people who were not desiring same sex relationships or understanding their gender differently to the one assigned to them were leading to often prescriptive ideas and thoughts about the individuals, and while that may be important, it seemed that queer theory was attempting to universalize or at least trying to understand experiences from those folks as a community and not as distanced or very different at all.
ReplyDeleteOne passage that I found particularly interesting was the section about performing identity. This was an idea that I got to play around with in my Precarious Bodies course with Dr. V, but not one that I really got to dig deep into at the time. The page that I am really looking at to understand is page 73. In the pages before, the discussion seemed to be about whether queerness was an answer to the question of straightness, in other words, is queerness an identity in of itself or is it an identity in response to another. And I think here that the latter would almost shrink or change the value of such an identity. What I believe Hall is trying to make us work through is whether or not a queer identity as a response is possible and if so how that validates or invalidates the identity and culture that comes from it. Which is where Judith Butler, who writes about gender performativity, even in the context of drag as a way to perform gender, and in this way maybe even perform queerness. This is in spite of the fact that Butler asserts that there is no beginning or original gender, yet we seem to act like there is and respond to that in acceptance or rejection. Still I think what this section is trying to for us is trying to tell us that identity did not and does not have to be that way, that queerness in particular could just be an identity in of itself and not something that was not.
Thank you, Regi, for getting caught up on this post, too. I think I follow your first distinction, and it is important to see queer as distinctive from gay and lesbian. It has served in many ways not as an umbrella term that includes gay and lesbian, but one that is different from those identities. As we've discussed in class, a queer sexual orientation is one that doesn't fit as neatly into the more familiar or (homo)normative identities of gay and lesbian. Your reading of Butler is coming along well, too, and accurately makes sense of what she is trying to say.
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