In this special issue of SAQ, a prominent group of contributors consider the vicissitudes of queer theory since its inception in the early 1990s. The issue considers what—if anything—lies at the heart of queer studies other than its interest in sexuality. With essays intended to be more reflective than scholarly, the authors contemplate the future of queer theory by meditating richly on its past. Whether viewing sexuality as the epitome of the social or of the anti-social, the essays form a sustained meditation on sex as a source of delight and trouble, as a subject of serious inquiry, and as a political conundrum.

Contributors explore the interdisciplinarity of the field and its relation to other fields, such as critical race studies, feminism, and lesbian and gay studies. Several essays recall the birth of queer theory in the days of the feminist-sex wars and the first AIDS-related gay male deaths; some contributors evoke the days of the field’s infancy while others are pleased to embrace its maturity. The sheer number and breadth of the topics considered—everything from Hank Williams and the paradoxes of Native American sovereignty to the declension of atoms in the writings of Lucretius, from Henry Darger’s “naive” depiction of girls with male genitals to the experience of being single or of falling asleep—reflect the continuing power of queer theory a generation after its inception.



Contributors
Lauren Berlant
Michael Cobb
Ann Cvetkovich
Lee Edelman
Richard Thompson Ford
Carla Freccero
Elizabeth Freeman
Jonathan Goldberg
Janet Halley
Neville Hoad
Joseph Litvak
Michael Moon
José Esteban Muñoz
Jeff Nunokawa
Andrew Parker
Elizabeth A. Povinelli
Richard Rambuss
Erica Rand
Bethany Schneider
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Kate Thomas

  

  

  

  

1. Introduction–Janet Halley and Andrew Parker

2. Starved–Lauren Berlant

3. Lonely–Michael Cobb

4. Public Feelings–Ann Cvetkovich

5. Ever After: History, Negativity, and the Social–Lee Edelman

6. What’s Queer about Race?–Richard Thompson Ford

7. Queer Times–Carla Freccero

8. Still After–Elizabeth Freeman

9. After Thoughts–Jonathan Goldberg

10. Queer Theory Addiction–Neville Hoad

11. Glad to Be Unhappy–Joseph Litvak

12. Do You Smoke? Or, Is There Life? After Sex?–Michael Moon

13. The Sense of Watching Tony Sleep–José Esteban Muñoz

14. Queer Theory: Postmortem–Jeff Nunokawa

15. Disturbing Sexuality–Elizabeth A. Povinelli

16. After Male Sex–Richard Rambuss

17. After Sex?!–Erica Rand

18. Oklahobo: Following Craig Womack’s American Indian and Queer Studies–
Bethany Schneider
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19. Post Sex: On Being Too Slow, Too Stupid, Too Soon–Kate Thomas

20. Melanie Klein and the Difference Affect Makes–Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

21. Notes on Contributors