Queer Epidemics

This chapter of my book Bodies Out of Rule (2014) considers John Greyson's Zero Patience – a 1993 musical satire on the early days of the AIDS epidemic – in the context of the epidemiological and immunity discourses inherent in neoliberal biopolitics. Greyson's film can be read as a queer critique of the broadly understood epidemiological operations of biopower, especially its authoritarian systematizations and taxonomizations that establish a certain "regime of truth" and are a necessary condition for the effective regulation of social practices and subjects. Through my reading of Greyson's film, I argue for a queer reclamation of the feared figure of the virus as a thoroughly transversal figure that transcends existing boundaries, identities, and cognitive categories.

The Lived Experiences of Queer* Teachers in İstanbul within the Scope of Institutionalized Heteronormativity and Neoliberal School Policies

Even though the challenges that Queer* employees face in the workplace because of their intersecting identities of gender, sexuality, race, and class continue to be one of the rarely studied topics in social sciences, there has been a resurgence of interest in recent years, concerning how Queer* teachers experience the conflation of their sexual and professional identities. Informed by the recognition that schools are one of the most representative prototypes of gendered organizations with their ever-adapting regimes of inequality, this study is motivated by the question of how Queer* teachers in İstanbul deal with the enduring institutionalized homophobia, which has only got worse in terms of its silencing and pathologizing mechanisms. Claiming one of the fundamental functions of schools to establish strictly heteronormative spaces of learning, where any form of gender nonconformity or sexual dissidence stands before disciplinary punishment or reprimand from other students and teachers, I have examined the current working conditions of Queer* teachers in İstanbul within the contexts of schools, which compel Queer* teachers to abide by their institutionalized rules and norms of compulsory heterosexuality. This study attempts to learn what kind of experiences Queer* teachers in İstanbul articulate regarding the conundrum of being forced into presenting themselves as non-sexualized and non-gendered professional figures, as neoliberal policies and capitalist expectations of a rigid separation between professional identities and personal lives of workers continue to negatively affect the occupational well-being of Queer* teachers. A careful analysis of the interviews has revealed that the Queer* teachers in İstanbul are burdened with the aesthetic labor they are constantly expected to perform due to the emergent neoliberal schemes of professionalism and that they suffer under closely monitoring mechanisms of heteronormative school policies and work climates.

In the Margins of One Health: Interspecies Solidarity, Care, and Inequality

This article is an attempt to frontally pose a question queer theory gravitates around, yet never effectively spells out: what is a togetherness of those who have nothing in common but their desire to undo group ties? First, I consider the take-up of Lacan’s ethical experiment in Seminar VII, the Ethics of Psychoanalysis by queer theorists. I contend that queer theory has not given Lacan’s interpretation of Antigone its full import, which demands its placement in the philosophical tradition of the West brought to its highest fruition in Kant. I further contend, however, that to do so does not quite offer a solution to the queer problem, for, as contemporary debate on the political import of Antigone shows, the purity of her desire does not immediately translate into a sustainable politics. Lacan himself was faced with the problem of translating his ethics into a politics after his "excommunication" from the psychoanalytic establishment, and came to falter before it. Nevertheless, Lacan’s efforts allow us to pose the undoubtedly queer question of how to group together those whose only attribute is to undo group ties. Responding to the unanswerable demands of a theory and a practice that allows us to answer that question, I propose the figure of the smoker’s communism, as elaborated upon by Mladen Dolar, as a preliminary queer suggestion as to how we might go about mitigating the gap between Lacan’s ethical brilliance and his admitted political failure..

Museari: Art in a Virtual LGBT Museum Promoting Respect and Inclusion

Museari is an online museum dedicated to upholding human rights and sexual diversity through art, history, and education. Museari was born in 2015 and since then more than 70 exhibitions have been presented. This paper analyzes Museari's interest in teacher training, something that has been especially positive during the Covid-19 pandemic. The objective of the research is to reflect on the opportunity to use a virtual museum to address issues of art and education. For data collection, we used assessment instruments specific to the case study, such as diagnoses, discussions, focus groups, and participant observation. We highlight museum’s positive reception by the students, particularly the role it plays in overcoming stereotypes and conventional taboos to achieve inclusive environments.

The Paradoxes of PrEP: Rejection, Reluctancy, and Novel Gay Identities in Biomedical HIV Prevention in Serbia

This article explores the different ways in which gay men in Serbia perceive PrEP as a novel method of HIV prevention. In the article, I draw on data from my research on PrEP use among thirty gay men in Belgrade. The use of PrEP is still very low amongst gay communities in Serbia due to their rejection of PrEP and due to the stigma around PrEP use. In Serbia, the social significance of PrEP relates to HIV status disclosure on gay social/dating media. Paradoxically, on gay dating sites, the signifier "PrEP" blurs the line between HIV positive gay men – who have achieved undetectable HIV status through a potent ARV therapy – and those HIV negative gay men who use PrEP as a preventative tool against HIV transmission. In the article, I will argue that a new form of gay identity has emerged on gay dating apps in Serbia – "undetectable, on PrEP." This new identity emerges from confusion in HIV risk assessment. The use of PrEP has been seen as a marker to denote someone’s HIV negative status and to protect them from HIV transmission. However, some gay men with an undetectable HIV status would like to be regarded as HIV negative even though they are not, and thus they use the signifier "on PrEP" to highlight their desire to claim an HIV negative status. PrEP has many symbolic valences: from HIV status disclosure to assumed promiscuity. As I will argue, while the health paradigm is of utmost importance for Serbian gay men, internalized stigma additionally drives the low uptake of PrEP amongst gay communities in Serbia, thus contributing to the confusion regarding PrEP use and the overall approach to HIV prevention. This article finds that those respondents who accept PrEP without stigma or confusion regarding their HIV status are also more willing and ready to recommend using PrEP to other gay men.

Introducing: Queer Theory (in Three Shorts)

Antke Antek Engel, member of the editorial board of InterAlia, co-operated with Filmfetch (Magda Wystub; Tali Tiller) and FernUniversität Hagen to create three educational films which discuss the tenets of queer theory in a manner suitable for non-academic viewers. The films were released in 2021 and are available on the university’s website: https://e.feu.de/queer-theory-videos and on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh98rBDWATF6bkxKNvpR4gQ

Queer Indiscipline, Decolonial Revolt: The Production of Undisciplined Knowledges in the Neoliberal Age

As an intervention into a domesticated academic knowledge production and an increasingly normative queer theorizing, Queer Indiscipline, Decolonial Revolt asks for the proliferation of other modalities of thinking and writing. The context of such interrogation is the neoliberal restructuring of the university which comfortably accommodates criticality. Where criticality has lost its sting, this paper calls for a daring indiscipline opposing political, public, and scientific disciplining. This brings practices of doing knowledge and not the knowledges as such into attention. An intimacy between the queer and the undisciplined is established by referencing the resistance to assimilationist politics and practices as queer theory’s principal asset. Yet, undisciplined know¬ledges are not only geared towards challenging the bounds of the discipline(s), but also, and more broadly, towards decolonial futures. Queer Indiscipline, Decolonial Revolt explores various moments of concomitant unlearning and improvisation on and beyond the academic stage. The piece conducts three non-linear explorations. The first part analyzes the making of a hierarchical knowledge machine as part of capitalist modernity and revisits moments of queer and black queer theorizing that challenge the dividing lines between high/low, sensible/nonsensical, intellectual/corporeal, theory/practice, speech/chatter, etc. The second part discusses the masterful subject as the agent of knowledge. While the persistence and the pervasiveness of such master fantasy gets acknowledged, the verve of this paper is oriented towards the modality of queer dispos¬session. The final section gives way to the sabotage inherent in the unruly rhythm of life. Such sabotage is tested to counteract the frameworks, formats and concepts which articulate intellectuality on a more fun¬damental level. This advances the deconstruction of intellectuality to the terrifying and beautiful point where intellectuality is co-extensive with the social.