In her article for this special issue of Scholar & Feminist, Apryl Berney explores the musical collaborations of Etta James and Sugar Pie DeSanto, who grew up together in San Francisco’s Fillmore district. In one of the duo’s most famous songs, “In the Basement,” James and DeSanto celebrate the power and possibility of the private … Read more
“Where can you dance to any music you choose?” asks Sugar Pie DeSanto in her 1966 Chess recording with Etta James. Like many other pop and rhythm and blues songs of its era, “In the Basement” celebrates the sights and sounds of the city – only childhood girlfriends and cousins James and DeSanto do not … Read more
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As tensions rise to a climax in Ralph Ellison’s monumental 1952 novel The Invisible Man, characters rapidly begin to reproach one another as traitors: Ras the Exhorter accuses Tod Clifton for joining the communist Brotherhood; the narrator feels betrayed when he comes upon Clifton performing on the street with a Sambo doll; the narrator wonders … Read more
Upon his return from the People’s Republic of China in 1971, the Black Panther featured an image of Black Panther Party co-founder and Minister of Defense Huey Newton shaking hands with Vice Premier Zhou Enlai on its cover. Inside was a half-page photograph captioned “Huey P. Newton, Servant of the People, flanked by Comrades upon … Read more
This issue of Scholar and Feminist Online, edited by Brenna Munro and Gema Pérez-Sánchez, offers timely and critical interventions for theorizing and engaging with queer activism both across national boundaries and between the “Global North” and “Global South,” a chasm they seek to complicate. Troubling the notion of the Global North as the site of … Read more
A note about this piece Introduction In the late 1990s, a low-cost housing coalition formed in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago under the auspices of a grassroots activist group, Community of Uptown Residents for Affordability and Justice (COURAJ). The coalition lasted until about 2005, and although it had some victories, it was not especially successful, … Read more
In the last couple of decades, there has been considerable anxiety among queer theorists and activists regarding the influence in India of Western categories, terminology and forms of activism. The anxiety about Western influence is not unique to queer movements. Educated Indians, in the aftermath of colonialism, have continued a love-hate relationship with the West … Read more
A note about this piece. Queer Politics in A Time of Rising Right Wing Populism BRENNA MUNRO: Thank you so much for talking to us again Graeme. Following up on the previous interview that we did, since then, obviously, Trump has become president, so I wanted to ask you, how you see that changing the … Read more
A note about this piece. Video 1: LGBTI Rights Abuses GEMA PÉREZ-SÁNCHEZ: Hi, I’m Gema Perez Sanchez. BRENNA MUNRO: And I’m Brenna Munro, and we’re both professors from the University of Miami. GEMA PÉREZ-SÁNCHEZ: We’re here at the headquarters of Human Rights Watch to have a conversation with Graeme Reid, who is a director of … Read more
