homo, hetero, queer - category making

Category Making: “Queer,” “Homosexual,” “Bisexual,” “Heterosexual,” and . . . : 

Category Making: “Queer,” “Homosexual,” “Bisexual,” “Heterosexual,” and . . . G205 – Hunter/Duggan, Katz, Namaste, and Rubin

Our guiding problematic . . . : 

Our guiding problematic . . . How does sexual pleasure and desire figure (in your life, the readings, in general) in light of regulations on deviant sexualities? What are some regulations on deviant sexualities and how did we get to where we are? We will look at Queer /Post-structuralism to help us.

Theoretical paradigms change over time. . : 

Theoretical paradigms change over time. . Structuralism Post-structuralism Universalisms Essentialisms Taxonomic (create struct.) Descriptive (synchronic) Separates mind/body Categories define Theorists: Marx, Levi-Strauss, Freud Particularities Social Constructionism Deconstruction Historical (diachronic) Can incorporate body, but all categories produce excess Theorists: Butler, Rubin, Foucault, Stryker

Rubin, The Sex Hierarchy : 

Rubin, The Sex Hierarchy

Post-Structuralism asks . . . : 

What is the relationship between the academic and the object of study? In what way can we know that object; is it available to us at all? What can we know about the past? What does it mean to interpret or analyze a work of literature? How do we choose what works to study? What is the role of the aesthetic in either art history or literary study? How is the canon of literature or art produced? How do we decide what is "good" or "beautiful"? Can there be any absolute standards of value at all if meaning is a product of arbitrary relationship and difference? Post-Structuralism asks . . .

Postmodernity according to S.Hall, the Frankfurt School of Cultural Studies : 

Postmodernity according to S.Hall, the Frankfurt School of Cultural Studies Post-modernity is often used as a euphemism for post-structuralist theory. Post-modernity as a place and time in a particular culture is ambiguous depending on where you are in the world; the meanings change, but in terms of pop culture, there is “always an ambivalent relationship to European high culture.” (This would include the art and literature of the so called “dead white men.”) This means that meanings are “historically contingent.” A global phenomenon that has “shifted the terrain of culture toward the popular” or culturally dominant which tends to “decenter or displace” grand narratives and old hierarchies. Difference is fetishized. Multiculturalism….. Example: Cosmo in “developing countries”…….Vogue India Matched by backlash, “the aggressive resistance to difference . . .” Example: Obama as “race” and Clinton as “gender” and John McCain as the “age” candidate demonstrates a refusal to think/promote intersectional analysis in favor of one axis of difference.

Slide 7: 

Gayle Rubin’s “The Charmed Circle,” (post-structural theorist and feminist anthropologist)

How Ideology “works” through the process of “articulation” (S. Hall) : 

How Ideology “works” through the process of “articulation” (S. Hall) IDEOLOGY: It defines, but also sets limits It figures (renders clear) but it can also obscure It includes but also leaves out It explains—but for specific reasons It expresses and makes links between certain ideas, practices, etc. It makes certain political positions or social relations (ex. patriarchy, heterosexuality, capitalism) seem “natural” or “commonsense” Example: feminism (?), post-feminism and victim blame mentalities

Ideology : 

Ideology refers to the important 'belief systems' adhered to by groups or whole societies - it is our 'world view' or 'mind set' concerning how things are and ought to be. A society is a group of people who share certain key values and ideas. These values and ideas are called that society's ideologies. Examples, Heterosexual imperative/Compulsory Heterosexuality, binary sex/gender system, conservativism/liberalism, beauty standards.

Slide 10: 

A man modeled a Burberry umbrella in Vogue that costs about $200. Marketers need to “create brand awareness” in India, said Claudia D’Arpizio, a partner with the consulting firm Bain & Company, who is based in Milan. Who are they creating brand awareness for? Who are the producers and who are the consumers?

Slide 11: 

In Vogue India magazine, a child from a poor family modeled a Fendi bib, which costs about $100. NYT 9/1/08 - Some 456 million Indians live on less than $1.25 a day. That is half the population.

Feminisms Articulated ->& Disarticulated : 

Feminisms Articulated ->& Disarticulated 2 Wave 1-2 wave 2nd Wave Faux-Feminism (post-feminism occurs through the process of disarticulation) “taking feminism into account,” only to dismiss it. Language of “Choice” Return to liberal ideologies Consumerism/Individualism (McRobbie) All Waves

Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, VI : 

19th C. rise in “sexual repression” (Victorian virtues) caused “incitement to discourse” on sexuality. (confession, print media) Argues that power is diffuse, rather than concentrated among the top of a hierarchy. There is no “outside” to power. Agency for everyone Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, VI

Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex,” 1984 : 

Sex Positive Feminist Rubin coined the phrase “sex/gender system:” “the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied". (“The Traffic in Women,” 1975) “Thinking Sex” “It is essential to separate gender and sexuality analytically to more accurately reflect their separate social existence.” What would K. Namaste have to say about this? Why is this so important to Rubin? What assumptions are present when we do not think of gender and sexuality as separate? Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex,” 1984

Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex,” 1984 : 

Sex Positive Feminist Rubin coined the phrase “sex/gender system:” “the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied". (“The Traffic in Women,” 1975) “Thinking Sex” “It is essential to separate gender and sexuality analytically to more accurately reflect their separate social existence.” What would K. Namaste have to say about this? Why is this so important to Rubin? What assumptions are present when we do not think of gender and sexuality as separate? Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex,” 1984

Rubin’s “Thinking Sex” : 

Sexual morality has a lot in common with ideologies of racism. Sexual Transformations Sexual Stratification Sexual Conflicts Limitations of feminisms (i.e., Dworkin, labeled a radical feminist & sex negative) Rubin’s “Thinking Sex”

Gayle Rubin: “Thinking Sex” : 

Is the dream of ‘the elimination of obligatory sexualities and sex roles” possible to realize? (The other way to ask the question: in what ways is heterosexuality compulsory [Rich], or obligatory [Rubin]?) In what ways do we define sex, gender, sexuality? Sex: biological differences between “female” and “male” (biological determinism) Gender: social construction of “femininity” and “masculinity” (social constructionism) Sexuality: sexual identity, sexual partner, sexual behavior. -- “homosexual” and “heterosexual” –fixed by nature, by culture, by choice, or fluid and constructed by social environments? How do we look at sexual activities usually seen as “abnormal”? For instance, abortion, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, porn, cyber sex, FGM (female genital mutilation), etc. Is there a way to completely eliminate sex hierarchy? Where, when and how do we need to define sex as good and bad? Gayle Rubin: “Thinking Sex”