Queer Democracy

Queer Democracy undertakes an interdisciplinary critical investigation of the centuries-old metaphor of society as a body, drawing on queer and transgender accounts of embodiment as a constructive resource for reimagining politics and society. Daniel Miller argues that this metaphor has consistently expressed a desire for social and political order, grounded in the social body’s imagined normative shape or morphology. The consistent result, from the “concord” discourses of the pre-Christian Stoics, all the way through to contemporary nationalism and populism, has been the suppression of any dissent that would unmake the social body’s presumed normativity. Miller argues that the conception of embodiment at the heart of the metaphor is a fantasy, and that negative social and political reactions to dissent represent visceral, dysphoric responses to its reshaping of the social body. He argues that social body’s essential queerness, defined by fluidity and lack of a fixed morphology, spawns queer democracy, expressed through ongoing social and political practices that aim to extend liberty and equality to new social domains. Queer Democracy articulates a new departure for the ongoing development of theoretical articulations linking queer and trans theory with political theory. It will appeal to both academic and non-academic readers engaged in research on political theory, populism, US religion, gender studies, and queer studies.

In The Queer Question: Essays on Desire and Democracy, Scott Tucker issues a fierce clarion call to radicals and queers to be true to the democratic potential of the United States.

“Presentist democracy is without a people and without nation. Rather than regimes of borders and migration, its borders are sexism and racism, homo- and transphobia, colonialism and extractivism.” In the midst of the crises and threats to liberal democracy, Isabell Lorey develops a democracy in the present tense; one which breaks open political certainties and linear concepts of progress and growth. Her queer feminist political theory formulates a fundamental critique of masculinist concepts of the people, representation, institutions, and the multitude. In doing so, she unfolds an original concept of a presentist democracy based on care and interrelatedness, on the irreducibility of responsibilities—one which cannot be conceived of without social movements’ past struggles and current practices.

This book discusses the context for and arguments in favor of same-sex marriage in the United States.

This book uses an ethnographic study of one gay community's responses to AIDS to illustrate a radical democratic understanding of citizenship in contemporary society. Analyzing specific forms of AIDS organizing and activism in Vancouver, British Columbia from ACT UP to visiting buddy programs Brown explores the alternative spaces of political action that have formed in locations where state, civil society, and family overlap. Instead of the traditional view of citizenship as a formal, unchanging relationship between individual and state, he proposes that citizenship is more productively discerned in everyday acts and in the actual places where we live our lives. An important contribution to queer theory and theories of radical democracy, the book brings abstract concepts down to earth with its nuanced portrait of the survival strategies of a community under siege. Honorable Mention, Myers Outstanding Book Awards

Drawing on the example set by feminists, this textbook explores the problems of pursuing lesbian and gay political agendas within the present structure of democracy. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the author connects the analysis of lesbian and gay identities in sociology and cultural studies with the analysis of democracy in political theory. This paves the way for a consideration of the implications of sociological theories of sexuality for democratic theory and practice. Engaging with queer theory, the dominant perspective in the area of sexual identity and politics, the author offers a critique of many of the theorists - including Judith Butler and Diana Fuss - and directions within this field. This approach offers a broad focus on the issues of citizenship and legal, social and political policies with which queer theorists are involved. Up to date with current debates, this book reflects the need to return from an inaccessible level of abstract theory. It grounds ideas about sexuality in material and political realities by assessing the possibility of articulating a sociological view of the sexual self which can be translatedinto effective political strategies.

In Post-Queer Politics, Ruffolo looks at the work of Foucault, Butler, Bakhtin, Deleuze, Guattari and others in his creative refocus on the queer/heteronormative dyad that has largely consumed queer studies and contemporary politics. He offers a radical and intersectional new way of thinking about class, race, sex, gender, sexuality and ability that extends beyond queer studies to be truly transdisciplinary in its focus and political implications. It will appeal to readers across a range of subjects, including gender and sexuality studies, philosophy, cultural studies, political science, and education.

Liberal democracy has provided a certain degree of lesbian and gay rights. But those rights, as we now know, are not unlimited, and they continue to be the focus of efforts by lesbian and gay movements in the United States to promote social change. In this compelling critique, Craig Rimmerman looks at the past, present, and future of the movements to analyze whether it is possible for them to link identity concerns with a progressive coalition for political, social, and gender change, one that take into account race, class, and gender inequalities. Enriched by eight years of interviews in Washington, D.C. and New York City, and by the author's experience as a Capitol Hill staffer, From Identity to Politics will provoke discussion in classrooms and caucus rooms across the United States. Author note: Craig A. Rimmerman is Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He is the author of several books, including The New Citizenship: Unconventional Politics, Activism, and Service.