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B3 W1: Theory and Critical Research II - Queer (Somerville)

Siobhan Somerville. “Queer” in Keywords for American Cultural Studies, eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler (New York: NYU Press, 2007)
http://keywords.nyupress.org/american-cultural-studies/essay/queer/

"it was not until the 1940s that “queer” began to be used in mainstream U.S. culture primarily to refer to “sexual perverts” or “homosexuals,” most often in a pejorative, stigmatizing way, a usage that reached its height during the Cold War era and that continues to some extent today."

"The movement to gain legal rights to same-sex marriage demonstrates some of the key differences between a lesbian/gay rights approach and a queer activist strategy. While advocates for same-sex marriage argue that lesbians and gay men should not be excluded from the privileges of marriage accorded to straight couples, many queer activists and theorists question why marriage and the nuclear family should be the sites of legal and social privilege in the first place." 

"While historians have disagreed about the precise periods and historical contexts in which the notion of sexual identity emerged, Foucault’s insistence that sexuality “must not be thought of as a kind of natural given” has been transformative, yielding an understanding of sexuality not as a “natural” psychic or physical drive but as a “set of effects produced in bodies, behaviors, and social relations by a certain deployment” of power. (Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction. 1976. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1990.)" 

 " heteronormativity is a form of power that exerts its effects on both gay and straight individuals, often through unspoken practices and institutional structures." 

 Queer of colour critique -
Munoz, José Esteban. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
Ferguson, Roderick A. Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

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