Queer Latinx Criticism

This seminar traces some of the main critical currents and themes of the field of Queer Latinx Studies. Beginning with the path-breaking anthology of radical women of color, This Bridge Called Our Back (1981), co-edited by Chicana lesbian feminist writers Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, we consider how their foundational work has been taken up by a second generation of Latina lesbian critics as well as in Gay Latino studies. The seminar then turns from the West Coast to the East Coast and to New York City as a key place for queer Latinx cultures and theorizations, from the Warhol factory (1962-1984), to the Nuyorican Poets café (1975), to New York dance clubs and drag balls. We explore how these performing cultures inform one of the principal critical voices of Queer Latinx Criticism: the late José E. Muñoz whose works Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999), Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (2009), and the posthumous The Sense of Brown (2020) decisively participated in the shaping of the field of Queer of Color Critique. We then consider how Queer Latinx studies is situated in the broader field of Latin American queer studies and specific theorizations (the tacit; translocase) that emerge out of this particular emplacement. Lastly, we consider the recent theorizations of Latinx and Chicanx Trans lives and cultures and how these are informing the field of Queer Latinx studies.