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A review by pink_distro
Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable by Eric A. Stanley
5.0
4.5. one of this book's central arguments is that racialized anti-queer/trans violence is foundational to the modern order of things (settler-colonial US democracy), and not an aberration or some old thing. it also argues that systemic "inclusion" isn't a reduction of violence, but is (and has been historically) a continuation or heightening of violence. these points are very important to any queer/trans organizing today and are well argued.
along the way, Eric Stanley theorizes and reframes interpersonal anti-queer/trans violence, blood donations, the origin of AIDS, potential liberatory trans aesthetics, suicide, the legacies of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson, solitary confinement, and much more. these individual subsections made vital interventions that were often easier for me to grasp on their own than the overarching theoretical arguments that i struggle with.
its true that this book spends a great deal of time sitting with devastating and detailed scenes of brutal anti-queer/trans violence. the text is very distressing to read at times due to that. but their engagement with these scenes didn't feel unthoughtful to me. in my opinion, the first chapter on overkill came to insightful conclusions that really could not have been reached without that engagement. in the fourth chapter, they intellectually engage with the thought work of queer/trans suicide notes and video logs smuggled out of prisons. this is heart-rending to read. but it is also such a deeply different, more dignified, intimate, and real mode of engagement with anti-queer/trans violence than anything else i've seen in our society.
it's also true that the register of this book is in some ways very "academic." there were many times i felt like i couldn't quite grasp the ideas presented because i havent read any Foucault or Freud, or enough Fanon. thats unfortunate. but idk how much i can blame the book for that.
and there are many times when i am grateful
for Stanley's tongue-twisting and poetic writing. the way anti-queer/trans violence is rendered in mainstream discourse — 'tragedy,' 'hate crime,' an 'epidemic' of murdered trans women of color, a 'senseless' killing or mass shooting, etc. — is just numbing. and it does nothing close to representing the reality of our society and its violence. Stanley's writing is confusing/difficult at times. but it is also often deeply moving, radicalizing, thoughtful, and just real.
along the way, Eric Stanley theorizes and reframes interpersonal anti-queer/trans violence, blood donations, the origin of AIDS, potential liberatory trans aesthetics, suicide, the legacies of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson, solitary confinement, and much more. these individual subsections made vital interventions that were often easier for me to grasp on their own than the overarching theoretical arguments that i struggle with.
its true that this book spends a great deal of time sitting with devastating and detailed scenes of brutal anti-queer/trans violence. the text is very distressing to read at times due to that. but their engagement with these scenes didn't feel unthoughtful to me. in my opinion, the first chapter on overkill came to insightful conclusions that really could not have been reached without that engagement. in the fourth chapter, they intellectually engage with the thought work of queer/trans suicide notes and video logs smuggled out of prisons. this is heart-rending to read. but it is also such a deeply different, more dignified, intimate, and real mode of engagement with anti-queer/trans violence than anything else i've seen in our society.
it's also true that the register of this book is in some ways very "academic." there were many times i felt like i couldn't quite grasp the ideas presented because i havent read any Foucault or Freud, or enough Fanon. thats unfortunate. but idk how much i can blame the book for that.
and there are many times when i am grateful
for Stanley's tongue-twisting and poetic writing. the way anti-queer/trans violence is rendered in mainstream discourse — 'tragedy,' 'hate crime,' an 'epidemic' of murdered trans women of color, a 'senseless' killing or mass shooting, etc. — is just numbing. and it does nothing close to representing the reality of our society and its violence. Stanley's writing is confusing/difficult at times. but it is also often deeply moving, radicalizing, thoughtful, and just real.