Domesticity and Queer Theory

Domesticity and Queer Theory asserts the value of domesticity as an object for queer study and a practice of queer survival. As queer theorists confront the ethical and political crises brought on by the uneven normalization of queer life in the twenty-first century, domesticity and the home present key sites for reaffirming queer theory’s commitment to queer and trans people and the complex lives they build. Contributors examine how potluck dinners foster joy in the American South, how an AIDS hospice in San Francisco enables queer kinship and grassroots resistance, how a house-turned-museum in London preserves the ephemeral signs of queer dwelling, how the practice of being a parent unsettles queer theory’s political claims to antinormativity, and the ways domestic life itself affords a powerful mode of queer archival practice, among other topics. Domesticity and Queer Theory charts a new history for the field and offers frameworks for approaching domesticity in the present as an essential part of queer life.