Search results

Coming from behind (derrière)--how else to describe a volume called "Derrida and Queer Theory"? -- as if arriving late to the party, or, indeed, after the party is already over. After all, we already have Deleuze and Queer Theory and, of course, Saint Foucault. And judging by Annamarie Jagose's Queer Theory: An Introduction, in which there is not a single mention of "Derrida" (or "deconstruction") -- even in the sub-chapter titled "The Post-Structuralist Context of Queer"--One would think that Derrida was not only late to the party, but was never there at all. This untimely volume, then, with wide-ranging essays from key thinkers in the field, addresses, among other things, what could be called the disavowed debt to "Derrida" in canonical "queer theory."

This paper looks at the meaning of the word queer and develops an understanding that is associated with the link that it has with the theory. It also brings to a fore a different equation of gender and sex that is developed by the theorists in the recent past. Though Queer theory is comparatively new in the sphere of literary criticism still it brings a lot of speculations and contestation of ideas along with its theoretical framework. This paper is intended to bring the basics of this theory by refereeing to the key theorists who have evolved it as a subject of academia.

Anthropological Explorations in Queer Theory offers a wide ranging fusion of queer theory with anthropological theory, shifting away from the discussion of gender categories and identities that have often constituted a central concern of queer theory and instead exploring the queer elements of contexts in which they are not normally apparent. Engaging with a number of apparently 'non-sexual' topics, including embodiment and fieldwork, regimes of value, gifts and commodities, diversity discourses, biological essentialisms, intersectionality, the philosophy of Bergson and Deleuze, and the representation of heterosexuality in popular culture, this book moves to discuss central concerns of contemporary anthropology, drawing on both the latest anthropological research as well as classic theories. In broadening the field of queer anthropology and opening queer theory to a number of new themes, both empirical and theoretical, Anthropological Explorations in Queer Theory will appeal not only to anthropologists and queer theorists, but also to geographers and sociologists concerned with questions of ontology, materiality and gender and sexuality.