Queer Economics: A Reader

Description

Twenty-five years ago, Mark D. Jordan published his landmark book on the invention and early history of the category ※sodomy,§ one that helped to decriminalize certain sexual acts in the United States and to remove the word
from the updated version of a standard English translation of the Christian Bible. In
, Jordan extends the same kind of illuminating critical analysis to present uses of ※identity§ with regard to sexual difference. While the stakes might not seem as high, he acknowledges, his newest history of sexuality is just as vital to a better present and future.
Shaking up current conversations that focus on ※identity language,§ this essential new book seeks to restore queer languages of desire by inviting readers to consider how understandings of ※sexual identity§ have shifted求and continue to shift求over time.
re-reads texts in various genres求literary and political, religious and autobiographical求that have been preoccupied with naming sex/gender diversity beyond a scheme of LGBTQ+ identities. Engaging a wide range of literary and critical works concerned with sex/gender self-understanding in relation to ※spiritual-ity,§ Jordan takes up the writings of Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Djuna Barnes, Samuel R. Delany, Audre Lorde, Geoff Mains, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Gloria Anzald迆a, Maggie Nelson, and others.
Before it＊s possible to perceive sexual identities differently, Jordan argues, current habits for classifying them have to be disrupted. In this way,
asks us to reach beyond identity language and invites us to re-perform a selection of alternate languages求some from before the invention of phrases like ※sexual identity,§ others more recent. Tracing a partial genealogy for ※sexual identity§ and allied phrases, Jordan reveals that the terms are newer than we might imagine. Many queer folk now counted as literary or political ancestors didn＊t claim a sexual or gender identity: They didn＊t know they were supposed to have one. Finally,
joins the writers it has evoked to resist any remaining confidence that it＊s possible to give neatly contained accounts of human desire. Reaching into the past to open our eyes to extraordinary opportunities in our present and future,
is a generatively destabilizing and essential read.