The Queer Art of Failure is about finding alternatives—to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives. Jack Halberstam proposes “low theory” as a mode of thinking and writing that operates at many different levels at once. Low theory is derived from ec...

In this quintessential work of queer theory, Jack Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two centuries. Demonstrating how female masculinity is not some bad imitation of virility, but a lively and dramatic staging of hybrid and minority genders, Halberstam catalogs the diversity of gender expressions among masculine women from nineteenth-century pre-lesbian practices to contem...

In this examination of the monster as cultural object, Judith Halberstam offers a rereading of the monstrous that revises our view of the Gothic. Moving from the nineteenth century and the works of Shelley, Stevenson, Stoker, and Wilde to contemporary horror film exemplified by such movies as Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Candyman, Skin Shows understands the Gothic as a versatile technology, a means of producing monsters that is cons...

The Queer Art of Failure is about finding alternatives—to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives. Halberstam proposes "low theory" as a mode of thinking and writing that operates at many different levels at once. Low theory is derived from eccentr...

In Wild Things Jack Halberstam offers an alternative history of sexuality by tracing the ways in which wildness has been associated with queerness and queer bodies throughout the twentieth century. Halberstam theorizes the wild as an unbounded and unpredictable space that offers sources of opposition to modernity's orderly impulses. Wildness illuminates the normative taxonomies of sexuality against which radical queer practice and politics operate. Throughout, Halberstam engages w...

Em tempos da prática do coaching e quando notícias distópicas tomam as manchetes, qual a importância de um livro sobre o fracasso? E mais: um livro que parte da pergunta do que poderia surgir depois da esperança, depois da terra arrasada? É com atraso de quase uma década que chega ao Brasil esse trabalho fundamental para os estudos queer e também a obra-prima do teórico norte-americano Jack Halberstam. "A arte queer do fracasso" investiga alternativas e rotas de fuga numa sociedade fascina...

Masculinity without men. In Female Masculinity Judith Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two hundred years. Providing the first full-length study on this subject, Halberstam catalogs the diversity of gender expressions among masculine women from nineteenth-century pre-lesbian practices to contemporary drag king performances.Through detailed textual readings...

In the last decade, public discussions of transgender issues have increased exponentially. However, with this increased visibility has come not just power, but regulation, both in favor of and against trans people. What was once regarded as an unusual or even unfortunate disorder has become an accepted articulation of gendered embodiment as well as a new site for political activism and political recognition. What happened in the last few decades to prompt such an extensive rethinking of ou...

Nell’ultimo decennio le discussioni pubbliche sulle questioni transgender sono aumentate in modo esponenziale. Ciò che una volta era considerato un disturbo o addirittura una sfortuna è diventato un’articolazione accettata dell’embodiment di genere, nonché un nuovo spazio per l’attivismo e il riconoscimento politico. Eppure a una maggiore visibilità si è accompagnata anche una grande regolamentazione, che non sempre è andata a favore delle persone trans*.In che modo un’identità stig...

Che cos'è il selvaggio nel mondo e nel tempo che abitiamo? Esiste un'idea di selvaggio che non sia al servizio del pensiero coloniale, che non determini esclusione, binarismi, violenza? È possibile immaginare un pensiero selvaggio e selvatico, un modo diverso di conoscere? Paradiso perduto o inferno a venire, pensiamo al selvaggio come a qualcosa che è esistito prima, che potrebbe esistere dopo, in ogni caso qualcosa che è altro da noi: noi esseri umani, moderni, civilizzati, colti, sovran...

Ci avevano promesso che saremmo stati dei vincenti. Ci avevano indicato gli obiettivi- i soldi, la famiglia, il potere, l'eccellenza - e la strada, fatta di determinazione, sudore della fronte e pensiero positivo: se cadi rialzati, prova ancora e ancora; ci siamo rialzati e abbiamo visto che a cadere era il mondo intorno a noi. Mai come in questi anni è diventato chiaro che l'idea di successo che avevamo in mente è una condanna e che tra volere e potere c'è di mezzo il capitalismo, con tut...

　　為何這麼多女人單身？為何這麼多男人抗拒婚姻？為何這麼多男同性戀者和女同性戀者養育嬰兒？　　在《卡卡女性主義》中，傑克（朱迪斯）．哈伯斯坦回答這些問題之餘，還嘗試說明，過去幾十年來哪些文化轉變改寫了性別和性相的政治。這新的圖景色彩繽紛，涵蓋了現象如懷孕男人、老來女同性戀者、海綿寶寶和酷兒家庭。這些活生生的現象與主導流行媒體的異性戀常規敘事如斯不同，我們該如何理解當中的差距呢？哈伯斯坦提出，我們可以擁抱混亂！哈伯斯坦既機智又尖銳，揭示了在繽紛的現象和常規之間，我們可以找到斷裂的空間，以新的形式去思考性、愛和婚姻。　　女神卡卡就是這新時代的象徵。哈伯斯坦嫻熟地指出這位世界巨星的象徵意義。結果是甚麼呢？帶來撩人的宣言，帶來二十一世紀性與性別的地圖，帶來使性別和性相流動的女性主義。女神卡卡就是這場新的女性主義的代表人物。　　《卡卡女性主義》既是手冊，亦是指南，也是性的說明書。這書認真地檢視異性戀之崩毀，並在廢墟中尋找路標，使我們可以以新的方式去做性、做性別、做卡卡。