The primary aim of this reading group (tentatively running Summer 2023) is to familiarize ourselves with queer theory written in the 1980s and '90s, for example the canonical texts of Michel Foucault, Eve Kosofsky Segdwick, and Judith Butler (and Guy Hocquenghem), but also texts by Leo Bersani, Susan Stryker, Gayle Rubin, Audré Lorde, Barbara Smith, bell hooks, and more!

In doing so, I hope that we will also have some wonderfully fruitful conversations regarding what a queer politics might look like, the "new relational modes" Foucault and Bersani talk about, what queer subjectivity and sociality look like, and what it even means to call a theory "queer." The reading group will be organized on and meet over Discord (alongside movie nights!), but I will try to keep an up-to-date schedule for what we plan to read in the coming week(s) here!

Schedule

Sunday, May 28th, 12-2 PM EST over Discord

Topic: Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality, vol 1, specifically Chapter 1: We "Other Victorians" along with other resources; getting to know Foucault's project & knowledge-power-pleasure

Tuesday, May 23rd, 7-9 PM EST over Discord

Topic: Lee Edelman's "Tearooms and Sympathy: The Epistemology of the Water Closet"; Walter Jenkins's arrest, surveillance and performativity in the men's bathroom, & national politics and homosexuality

Sunday, May 14th, 4-6 PM EST over Discord 

Topic: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet, specifically Chapter 1;  the politics of the "open secret" and the closet & homo-/heterosexual definition

Tuesday May 9th, 7-9 PM EST over Discord

Topic: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Between Men, specifically the intro and Chapter 1; erotic triangles & the male homosocial spectrum

Sunday April 30th, 4-6 PM EST over Discord

Topic: Getting to Know One Another and Goal-Setting!