Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
maybe another time... didnt like the style (too academic)
Anclado en la idea de utopía de Bloch, Muñoz plantea lo queer como un horizonte, no como un fin, como una forma de escapar al tiempo presente de la heteronormatividad. Para hacerlo analiza a autores como Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), Elizabeth Bishop en cuya obra, plantea, lo queer es presentado en su potencialidad, en su condición de posibilidad.
El autor reniega de ciertas políticas gay encaminadas a la conformidad, a la normalización y asimilación de las disidencias género-sexuales en el mundo heterosexual, como el matrimonio gay o la aceptación en el ejército.
El autor reniega de ciertas políticas gay encaminadas a la conformidad, a la normalización y asimilación de las disidencias género-sexuales en el mundo heterosexual, como el matrimonio gay o la aceptación en el ejército.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
“Cruising Utopia:The Then and There of Queer Futurity” by José Esteban Muñoz
Performance and queer studies scholar José Esteban Muñoz proposes that queerness is not yet here. Although we strive for queerness it still sits on the horizon, something to strive for with hope that is ultimately disappointed but still productive. In this collection of essays, Muñoz theorizes a utopia framing of queerness through a juxtaposition of existing queer theory with new examinations of queer visual culture.
This is a fantastic work of queer theory to me which has fundamentally shifted how I think about queerness and the utopia vision of the world without heternormative presumptions and constraints. I also would say I was lucky to be reading this slowly throughout the days of summer while I was also reading other queer works in the evenings. Reading Jeanette Winterson, Anthony Veasna So, and Theodore McCombs at the same time as Muñoz gave me an opportunity to apply the theorization of “Cruising Utopia” in ways which afforded me a better understanding of the work as a model of critique. However, I will also note that Muñoz here engages in one of my pet peeves about academic works, which is leaning so heavily into the language of theory that the work becomes difficult to access. I of course understand the audience of this text will likely be those who are already invested in the work of queer academia. However, I often find myself wondering why it is so often queer scholars who write with an inaccessible style demanded by the heteropatriarchal academy. And I include myself in this, often having to fight a tendency to overcomplicate my writing. Not all of Muñoz’s chapters are like this, but there are a couple that just didn’t land because it seemed that the necessity for jargon overtook understanding.
But this is a matter of meeting primary audience expectations, and I acknowledge that. When I look past the academic stylings of this work, “Cruising Utopia” is an impactful and important work in queer theory that I recommend for those who are interested in the venture of queer theory and criticism. It is not a work for readers outside academic settings. Even for those in academic settings, I would not recommend it if you have not already delved into queer theory with some reasonable depth. But for those in this circle of thinking, it is well worth consideration.
informative
it’s not perfect (i reread this to write a critique of it) but this is an exceptionally well crafted and wonderfully hopeful piece of queer theory. it absolutely deserves its canonical status in the field. it’s such a shame that muñoz passed away so young
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
this book, reading it right now, is making my brain explode. but explode-a-little-less, as suddenly things begin to make a vague sense. or to be joined in a choreography of vagueness. i'm currently engrossed in the depressing reality of how fleeting a satisfying activist life seems, and when i use the word activist its with the taken-for-granted idea that no part of myself and my intersections are left behind, i'm thinking of myself in the pat parker sense that one does. to live at that intersection is to have a frustrating relationship to time. i feel beset by thick heavy presences in absentia, doomed to relive the past, all that hauntology shit. reading this book is making me feel closer to irretrievable social loss. blah...