Applying queer theory to language, gender, and sexuality research in schools 1

Author(s):  
Helen Sauntson
2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kira Hall ◽  
Erez Levon ◽  
Tommaso M. Milani

This special issue was born out of a conversation initiated at a panel organized by two of us at the ninth biannual meeting of the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA), held at City University of Hong Kong in May 2016. The principal goal of the panel was to stimulate an academic discussion on the role of normativity and antinormativity in language, gender, and sexuality research in response to a series of critical interventions in cultural studies regarding some of the tenets underpinning queer theory (see Wiegman 2012; Penney 2014; Wiegman & Wilson 2015). It was our belief that sociolinguistics—with its focus on situated interpretations of social practice—has much to contribute, both theoretically and empirically, to these debates within cultural studies. This special issue is an initial attempt at articulating what such a contribution would be.


Author(s):  
Hannah Dyer

Discussions surrounding the rights, desires, and subjectivities of queer youth in education have a history marked by both controversy and optimism. Many researchers, practitioners, and teachers who critically examine the role of education in the lives of queer youth insist that the youth themselves should be involved in setting the terms of debate surrounding if and how they should be included in sites of education. This is important because the ways in which their needs and subjectivities are conceptualized have a direct impact on the futures that queer youth imagine for themselves and for others. For example, the furious and impassioned debates about sex education in schooling are also to do with the amount of empathy we have for queer youth. Thus, sex education is a frequent point of analysis in literature on queer youth in education. Literature on queer youth and education also helpfully demonstrates how racialization, gender, neoliberalism, and settler-colonialism permeate discourses of queer inclusion and constitute the conditions of both acceptance and oppression for queer youth. While queer studies has at times sharpened perceptions of queer youth’s subjective and systemic experiences in education, it cannot be collapsed into a unified theory of sexuality because it too is ripe with debate, variation, and contradiction. As many scholars and intellectual traditions make clear, the global and transnational dimensions of gender and sexuality cannot be subsumed into a unified taxonomy of desire or subject formation. More ethical interactions between teachers, peers, and queer youth are needed because our theories of queer desire and the discourses we attach to them evince material realities for queer youth. Despite the often prevailing insistence that queer youth belong in educational institutions, homophobia and heteronormativity continue to make inclusion a complicated landscape. In recognition of these dynamics, literature in the field of educational studies also insists that some queer youth find hope in education. Withdrawing advocacy and representation for queer, trans, and nonbinary youth in educational settings becomes dangerous when it creates a terrain for isolation and shame. Importantly, queer theory and LGBTQ studies have conceptualized the needs of queer youth in ways that emphasize education as a space wrought with emotion, power, and desire. Early theorizing of non-normative sexual desire continues to set the stage for contemporary discussions of schools as spaces of power and repression. That is, histories of activism, knowledge, and policy construction have made the present conditions of both inclusion and exclusion for queer youth. Contemporary debates about belonging and marginalization in schools are made from the residues and endurance of earlier formations of gender and race.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elly Scrine

This paper conceptualises songwriting as an ‘after-queer’ approach for exploring notions of gender and sexuality with young people. The article draws on songs created by seven groups of young people in music-based workshops which took place in schools with participants aged between 14–17. During these workshops, songwriting was used to explore the participants' imaginings of what gender might look like in their "perfect world". 'After-queer' scholarship is introduced and referred to throughout the paper as it relates to queer theory and research with young people, particularly focusing on discourses of risk and vulnerability that emerge across these fields. The paper highlights the value of creative and arts-based methodologies in queer research, through which expansion and questions of possibility, alternative, and identity can be raised and responded to. 'After queer' is offered as a useful lens for critical analysis, particularly in light of complex questions related to the promotion of "diversity" that emerged through the findings.


2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Craig

The notion that queer theory and feminism are inevitably in tension with one another has been well developed both by queer and feminist theorists. Queer theorists have critiqued feminist theories for being anti-sex, overly moralistic, essentialist, and statist. Feminist theorists have rejected queer theory as being uncritically pro-sex and dangerously protective of the private sphere. Unfortunately these reductionist accounts of what constitutes a plethora of diverse, eclectic and overlapping theoretical approaches to issues of sex, gender, and sexuality, often fail to account for the circumstances where these methodological approaches converge on legal projects aimed at advancing the complex justice interests of women and sexual minorities. A recent decision from the Ontario Court of Justice addressing a three-parent family law dispute involving gay and lesbian litigants demonstrates why recognition of the convergences between feminist and queer legal theories can advance both queer and feminist justice projects. The objective of this article is to demonstrate, through different and converging interpretations of this case that draw on some of the theoretical insights offered in a new anthology called Feminist and Queer Legal Theory, one rather straight-forward claim. The claim advanced here is that activists, advocates, litigants and judges are all well served by approaching complex legal problems involving sex, sexuality and gender with as many “methods” for pursuing and achieving justice as possible.La notion que la théorie homosexuelle et le féminisme sont inévitablement en conflit l’un avec l’autre a été bien développée à la fois par les théoriciens et théoriciennes homosexuels et féministes. Les théoriciens et théoriciennes homosexuels ont critiqué les théories féministes les qualifiant d’être anti-sexe, trop moralistes, essentialistes et étatistes. Les théoriciens et théoriciennes féministes ont rejeté la théorie homosexuelle la qualifiant d’être pro-sexe sans esprit critique et dangereusement protectrice du domaine privé. Malheureusement, ces descriptions réductionnistes de ce qui constitue une pléthore d’approches théoriques aux questions de sexe, de genre et de sexualité qui sont diverses, éclectiques et qui se chevauchent manquent fréquemment de tenir compte de circonstances où ces approches méthodologiques convergent sur des projets légaux visant à faire avancer les intérêts juridiques complexes des femmes et des minorités sexuelles. Une décision récente de la Cour de justice de l’Ontario portant sur un litige en droit de la famille entre trois parents et impliquant des parties homosexuelles et lesbiennes démontre pourquoi la reconnaissance des convergences entre les théories juridiques féministes et homosexuelles peut faire avancer à la fois les projets légaux homosexuels et féministes. Le but de cet article n’est pas de suggérer qu’une seule «théorie juridique féministe homosexuelle» convergente soit possible, ou même désirable. Plutôt, le but est de démontrer, par le biais d’interprétations différentes et convergentes de ce cas qui s’inspirent de certaines intuitions théoriques présentées dans une nouvelle anthologie intitulée Feminist and Queer Legal Theory, une proposition assez simple. La proposition avancée ici est que les activistes, les avocats, les parties à un litige et les juges sont tous bien servis en abordant des problèmes légaux complexes au sujet de sexe, de sexualité et de genre avec autant de «méthodes» que possible pour considérer la justice dans tous ses détails.


Author(s):  
Nina Kuorikoski

North American television series The L Word (USA 2004-present) tells the story of a group of lesbian and bisexual women living in Los Angeles. The current article offers a close reading of the first two seasons of the series, analysing them from the perspectives of both feminist theory and queer theory. It demonstrates that even though the series deconstructs the normative boundaries of both gender and sexuality, it can also be said to maintain the ideals of a heteronormative society. The argument is explored by paying attention to several aspects of the series. These include the series' advertising both in Finland and the United States and the normative femininity of the lesbian characters. In addition, the article aims to highlight the manner in which the series depicts certain characters which can be said to stretch the normative boundaries of gender and sexuality. Through this, the article strives to give a diverse account of the series' first two seasons and further critical discussion of The L Word and its representations.


Author(s):  
Page Valentine Regan ◽  
Elizabeth J. Meyer

The concepts of queer theory and heteronormativity have been taken up in educational research due to the influence of disciplines including gender and sexuality studies, feminist theory, and critical race theory. Queer theory seeks to disrupt dominant and normalizing binaries that structure our understandings of gender and sexuality. Heteronormativity describes the belief that heterosexuality is and should be the preferred system of sexuality and informs the related male or female, binary understanding of gender identity and expression. Taken together, queer theory and heteronormativity offer frames to interrogate and challenge systems of sex and gender in educational institutions and research to better support and understand the experiences of LGBTQ youth. They also inform the development of queer pedagogy that includes classroom and instructional practices designed to expand and affirm gender and sexual diversity in schools.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 455-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Meyerhoff ◽  
Susan Ehrlich

Research on language and gender encompasses a variety of methods and focuses on many aspects of linguistic structure. This review traces the historical development of the field, explicating some of the major debates, including the need to move from a reductive focus on difference and dichotomous views of gender to more performative notions of identity. It explains how the field has come to include language, gender, and sexuality and how queer theory and speaker agency have influenced research in the field.


2020 ◽  
pp. 026327642096740
Author(s):  
Stephen D. Seely

Within the context of questions raised by gender and sexuality studies about the relationship between sex and technics, I develop a theory of sexuation derived from Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation. First, I provide an overview of Simondon’s philosophy of individuation, from the physical to the collective. In the second section, I turn to the question of sexuality, outlining an ontogenetic account in which sexuation is conceived as a process of both individuation and relation that is fundamental to certain living beings. Then, drawing on Simondon’s theorization of technics in its mediating function between humans and the world, I resituate understandings of the relation between sex and technics. While each section – Individuation, Sexuation, Technicity – argues for the significance of these concepts to feminist and queer theory, overall the essay uses Simondon’s work as a new paradigm for gender and sexuality studies and calls for the invention of a sexuate culture.


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-192
Author(s):  
Diederik F. Janssen

Late modernity’s binary intrigue of child sexuality/abuse is understood as a backlash phenomenon reactive to a general trans‐Atlantic crisis concerning the interlocking of kinship, religion, gender, and sexuality. Tellingly dissociated from 1980s gay liberation and recent encounters between queer theory and kinship studies, the child abuse theme articulates modernity’s guarded axiom of tabooed incest and its projected contemporary predicament “after the orgy”—after the proclaimed disarticulation of religion‐motivated, kin‐pivoted, reproductivist, and gender‐rigid socialities. “Child sexual abuse” illustrates a general situation of decompensated nostalgia: an increasingly imminent loss of the child’s vital otherness is counterproductively embattled by the late modern overproduction of its banal difference, its status as “minor.” Attempts to humanize, reform, or otherwise moderate incest’s current “survivalist” and commemorative regime of subjectivation, whether by means of ethical, empirical, historical, critical, legal, or therapeutic gestures, typically trigger the latter’s panicked empiricism. Accordingly, most “critical” interventions, from feminist sociology and anthropology to critical legal studies, have largely been collusive with the backlash: rather than appraising the radical precariousness of incest’s ethogram of avoidance in the face of late modernity’s dispossessing analytics and semiotics, they tend to feed its state of ontological vertigo and consequently hyperextended, manneristic forensics.


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