Queer Temporality This essay is drawn from a book-length study of the explosion of queer urban subcultures in the last decade. My larger purpose is to examine how many queer communities experience and spend time in ways that are very different from their heterosexual counterparts. Queer uses of time and space develop in opposition to … Read more
In a recent book, Framing Identities: Autobiography and the Politics of Pedagogy, Wendy Hesford writes about the relationship “between self-representation and historical realities and the implication of this relationship for understanding ‘the complexity of the momentarily situated subject’” (4). Her emphasis on the importance of integrating the personal into an exploration of how identities are “negotiated … Read more
I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Laura Ma, Stacey Fong and Nancy Wong, who agreed to interviews for this article. Special thanks also go to Elaine and Samuel Wong, Master Pak Chiu Hung and Madam Lam Siu Kwan, Madam Liang Jing, and Master Wong Chi-Ming for their support for my work and … Read more
[Note: This essay is excerpted from a longer article, which will appear in TDR in 2004.] I almost married this Irish-American guy. . .I even went down to meet his family, and they lived in Sarasota, Florida. . . .Like I love his family but they were kinda too nice to me. So the whole time I … Read more
An earlier version of this essay, titled “Staging the Unspeakable: A Report on the Collaboration Between Theater Arts Against Political Violence, the Associazione Culturale Altrimenti, and 40 Counsellors in Training in Pristina, Kosovo” appeared in Psychosocial Notebook 3 (June 2002), 9-30, in a special issue on “Psychosocial and Trauma Response in War-Torn Societies: Supporting Traumatized Communities through … Read more
This article features video reproduced with the permission of Sarah Jones. To view the video, you will need a Quicktime Player, available as a free download by clicking here. On September 12, 2002, internationally acclaimed poet and actor Sarah Jones performed excerpts from her newest one-person play, Waking the American Dream at Barnard College. A moving collage of the hopes … Read more
The following are excerpts from the afternoon plenary session at The Scholar & the Feminist Conference XXVII on February 16, 2002. On the “liveness” of a spectacle as a point of entry: Anna Deavere Smith: . . . Well, in this case I don’t even care about the play, as much as the play as an … Read more
This article features video from an interactive multimedia installation produced by Jean Carlomusto and Jane Rosett. The installation features materials compiled from their personal archives documenting the AIDS pandemic for the past twenty years. The video and text are reproduced with the permission of Jean Carlomusto and Jane Rosett. Any and all aspects and components … Read more
Unfashionable Memories When I attended several screenings of AIDS activist videos at the Guggenheim Museum, New York City, in December 2000, I was struck by a bitter irony framing the context in which the work was being shown. Arriving early, as I always do at special screenings, I momentarily experienced that familiar rush of anxiety whenever … Read more
Lesbian Feelings in a Global Context When discussing the oral history interviews I conducted with AIDS activists, I always feel compelled to admit up front that I am not trained as an oral historian. I am a literary and cultural critic who was drawn to oral history because, when my research on trauma inevitably led … Read more
