Quare theory

Last updated

Quare theory was created by E. Patrick Johnson in 2001. Quare theory was created to promote the voices of queer people of color.

Contents

Quare theory is similar to "queer theory"; they are both forms of "critical theory" that focus on the study and theories of queer identities and actions. [1] [2] E. Patrick Johnson believed that within queer theory there was an erasure or minimization of queer people of colors voices. Johnson created Quare theory to uplift the voices that queer theory historically hadn't. With Queer theory there is "a significant theoretical gap" meaning queer theorists often silence or lessen the voices of queer people of color. [3]

History

Quare theory was created by E. Patrick Johnson who is a scholar and artist who studies gender, race, and sexuality performance. Johnson has written several books in the focus of his studies. He focuses on gender, race, and sexuality performance "modes of scholarly and artistic production". [4] He is a professor at Annenberg University for performance studies as well as a professor at Northwestern University for African American studies. Besides being a professor, Johnson is also "Dean of the School of Communication". [4] Furthermore, in the year of 2020 Johnson was "inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences". [4]

Johnson proposed quare theory to fill the gap left by queer theory. Johnson's essay on Quare studies proposes to address queer behavior and history from people of color's perspectives. The term quare was inspired from Johnson's grandmother because when she said the word queer with her accent it sounded like she said quare.

Definition

Quare theory is focused on "the racialized bodies, experiences, and knowledge of" queer people of color. [5] It's a perspective that's meant to shed light upon marginalized voices. The theory "narrows the gap between theory and practice" and highlights the performance aspect of the body. [1] Quare theory focuses on uplifting and addressing the needs of queer people "across issues of race, gender, class, and other subject positions". [6]

Quare vs queer theory

Quare theory is "both a counter theory" and "a counternarrative to queer theory". [5] Johnson discusses in his essay regarding quare theory that queer theory, whether intentionally or not, does not include queer people of color's voices. With quare studies, Johnson intended to increase the exposure of queer people of color and their issues. Quare studies explores different identities focusing on queer people from "racialized and class knowledges". [5] Quare studies fills in the gaps that queer theory left empty.

E. Patrick Johnson's works relating to quare theory

Books:

Edited Collections:

Journal Articles:

See also

Related Research Articles

Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies and women's studies.

Performance studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that teaches the development of performance skills and uses performance as a lens and a tool to study the world. The term performance is broad, and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical events, and performance art; sporting events; social, political and religious events like rituals, ceremonies, proclamations and public decisions; certain kinds of language use; and those components of identity which require someone to do, rather than just be, something. Performance studies draws from theories and methods of the performing arts, anthropology, sociology, literary theory, culture studies, communication, and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cherríe Moraga</span> American writer and activist (born 1952)

Cherríe Moraga is an influencial Chicana feminist writer, activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. A prominent figure in Chicana literature and feminist theory, Moraga's work explores the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and class, with particular emphasis on the experiences of Chicana and Indigenous women. She currently serves as Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Queer theology is a theological method that has developed out of the philosophical approach of queer theory, built upon scholars such as Marcella Althaus-Reid, Michel Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Judith Butler. Queer theology begins with the assumption that gender variance and queer desire have always been present in human history, including faith traditions and their sacred texts such as the Jewish Scriptures and the Bible. It was at one time separated into two separate theologies: gay theology and lesbian theology. Later, the two theologies would merge and expand to become the more general method of queer theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Esteban Muñoz</span> Cuban American academic (1967-2013)

José Esteban Muñoz was a Cuban American academic in the fields of performance studies, visual culture, queer theory, cultural studies, and critical theory.

Elondust Patrick Johnson is an American academic scholar and aritist best known as the creator of Quare Theory. He is Dean of the School of Communication and Annenberg University Professor of Performance Studies and African-American studies at Northwestern University. Johnson is the founding director of the Black Arts Consortium at Northwestern. His scholarly and artistic contributions focus on performance studies, African-American studies and women, gender and sexuality studies.

Cathy J. Cohen is an American political scientist, author, feminist, and social activist, whose work has focused on the African-American experience in politics from a perspective which is underlined by intersectionality. She is currently the David and Mary Winton Green Professor in Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago, and is the former Director of the Center for the Study of Race (2002–05).

Transgender studies, also called trans studies or trans* studies, is an interdisciplinary field of academic research dedicated to the study of gender identity, gender expression, and gender embodiment, as well as to the study of various issues of relevance to transgender and gender variant populations. Interdisciplinary subfields of transgender studies include applied transgender studies, transgender history, transgender literature, transgender media studies, transgender anthropology and archaeology, transgender psychology, and transgender health. The research theories within transgender studies focus on cultural presentations, political movements, social organizations and the lived experience of various forms of gender nonconformity. The discipline emerged in the early 1990s in close connection to queer theory. Non-transgender-identified peoples are often also included under the "trans" umbrella for transgender studies, such as intersex people, crossdressers, drag artists, third gender individuals, and genderqueer people.

Sheena C. Howard is an African-American academic, author and producer. She is a professor of communication at Rider University. She is also the past chair of the Black Caucus and the founder of Power Your Research, and academic branding company. Howard is the recipient of the 2014 Eisner Award for her first book Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation (2013).

Karma R. Chávez is a rhetorical critic who utilizes textual and field-based methods and studies the rhetorical practices of people marginalized within existing power structures. She has published numerous scholarly articles and books, including Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities, as well as co-founding the Queer Migration Research Network. She works with social justice organizations and her scholarship is informed by queer of color theory, women of color feminism, poststructuralism, and cultural studies.

Kara Keeling is an American humanities academic. As of 2016 she is Associate Professor at the University of Southern California in the Critical Studies of Cinematic Arts and in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity.

Queer of color critique is an intersectional framework, grounded in Black feminism, that challenges the single-issue approach to queer theory by analyzing how power dynamics associated race, class, gender expression, sexuality, ability, culture and nationality influence the lived experiences of individuals and groups that hold one or more of these identities. Incorporating the scholarship and writings of Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Barbara Smith, Cathy Cohen, Brittney Cooper and Charlene A. Carruthers, the queer of color critique asks: what is queer about queer theory if we are analyzing sexuality as if it is removed from other identities? The queer of color critique expands queer politics and challenges queer activists to move out of a "single oppression framework" and incorporate the work and perspectives of differently marginalized identities into their politics, practices and organizations. The Combahee River Collective Statement clearly articulates the intersecting forces of power: "The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives." Queer of color critique demands that an intersectional lens be applied queer politics and illustrates the limitations and contradictions of queer theory without it. Exercised by activists, organizers, intellectuals, care workers and community members alike, the queer of color critique imagines and builds a world in which all people can thrive as their most authentic selves- without sacrificing any part of their identity.

Julián Delgado Lopera is a queer Colombian writer and performer. They are the author of ¡Cuéntamelo! an illustrated collection of queer immigrant histories in the United States during the 1980s. They use creative expressions, such as writing, queer literary performance, and bilingual poetry to advance LGBT activism projects across the Bay Area. Delgado Lopera serves as the Executive/Artistic director for the nonprofit organization Radar Productions since 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. Riley Snorton</span> American scholar, author, and activist

C. Riley Snorton is an American scholar, author, and activist whose work focuses on historical perspectives of gender and race, specifically Black transgender identities. His publications include Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low and Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. Snorton is currently Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. In 2014 BET listed him as one of their "18 Transgender People You Should Know". Snorton is a highly sought after speaker and considered one of the leading voices in Black studies and cultural theory.

Queer erasure refers to the tendency to intentionally or unintentionally remove LGBT groups or people from record, or downplay their significance, which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. This erasure can be found in a number of written and oral texts, including popular and scholarly texts.

Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History is a 2008 ethnographic oral history of the lives of Black gay men in the Southern United States by scholar and performer E. Patrick Johnson, who himself grew up in rural North Carolina, and is openly gay.

Alison Kafer is an American academic specializing in feminist, queer, and disability theory. As of 2019, she is an associate professor of feminist studies at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the author of the book Feminist, Queer, Crip.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masculine of center</span> Gender expression & identity terminolgy

Masculine of center is a broad gender expression term used to describe a person who identifies or presents as being more masculine than feminine. It is most frequently used by lesbian, queer or non-binary individuals – generally those assigned female at birth. The term was coined by B. Cole as an umbrella term to encompass several labels used by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people of color while describing their more-masculine gender identity. Masculine of center is most often used in communities of color, and has implicit sociocultural connotations to both gender equality and racial justice.

LGBTQ+ communication studies is a field of research and teaching in the discipline of communication studies that examines the communication interactions, experiences, and organizing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other queer, two-spirit, gender non-conforming, intersex, and asexual people.

<i>Black. Queer. Southern. Women.</i> 2018 non-fiction book by E. Patrick Johnson

Black. Queer. Southern. Women. An Oral History is a non-fiction book by E. Patrick Johnson. It was published in 2018 by the University of North Carolina Press.

References

  1. 1 2 "Queer theory". Queer Theory and Brokeback Mountain. 2017. doi:10.5040/9781501318856.0007. ISBN   978-1-5013-1885-6.
  2. ↑ "Critical theory", Wikipedia, 2024-10-07, retrieved 2024-10-11
  3. 1 2 Johnson, E. Patrick (2001). ""Quare" studies, or (almost) everything I know about queer studies I learned from my grandmother". Text and Performance Quarterly. 21 (1): 1–25. doi:10.1080/10462930128119. ISSN   1046-2937.
  4. 1 2 3 Hanks-Mackey, Shannon; Johnson, E. Patrick; Pavlic, Ed (2012). "Book Reviews". The Black Scholar. 42 (3–4): 60–65. doi:10.1080/00064246.2012.11413612. ISSN   0006-4246.
  5. 1 2 3 Coleman, Raphael D.; Means, Darris R. (2021-01-24), "Quare Theory", Encyclopedia of Queer Studies in Education, BRILL, pp. 479–483, doi:10.1163/9789004506725_094, ISBN   978-90-04-50672-5 , retrieved 2024-10-11
  6. ↑ "Quare studies: a counternarrative to queer theory". Ebrary. Retrieved 2024-10-12.
  7. ↑ Johnson, E. Patrick (2019). Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women. Duke University Press. ISBN   978-1-4780-0590-2.
  8. ↑ "Black. Queer. Southern. Women. | E. Patrick Johnson". University of North Carolina Press. Retrieved 2024-11-18.
  9. ↑ Johnson, E. Patrick (2012). Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South. University of North Carolina Press. doi:10.5149/9780807882733_johnson. ISBN   978-0-8078-7226-0.
  10. ↑ Johnson, E. Patrick (2003). Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity. Duke University Press. ISBN   978-0-8223-3154-4.
  11. ↑ "Blacktino Queer Performance". www.dukeupress.edu. Retrieved 2024-11-18.
  12. ↑ No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies. Duke University Press. 2016. ISBN   978-0-8223-6222-7.
  13. ↑ Cultural Struggles.
  14. ↑ "solo/black/woman". Northwestern University Press. Retrieved 2024-11-18.
  15. ↑ Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. Duke University Press. 2005. ISBN   978-0-8223-3629-7.
  16. ↑ Johnson, E. Patrick (2016). "Put a Little Honey in My Sweet Tea: Oral History as Quare Performance". Women's Studies Quarterly. 44 (3/4): 51–67. ISSN   0732-1562.
  17. ↑ Ruiz, Jason; Johnson, E. Patrick (2014). "Pleasure and Pain in Black Queer Oral History and Performance: E. Patrick Johnson and Jason Ruiz in Conversation". QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. 1 (2): 160–180. doi:10.14321/qed.1.2.0160. ISSN   2327-1574.
  18. ↑ Johnson, E. Patrick (1998). "Feeling the Spirit in the Dark: Expanding Notions of the Sacred in the African-American Gay Community". Callaloo. 21 (2): 399–416. ISSN   0161-2492.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.