Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer TimesTenth Anniversary Expanded Edition Ten years on, Jasbir K. Puar’s pathbreaking Terrorist Assemblages remains one of the most influential queer theory texts and continues to reverberate across multiple political landscapes, activist projects, and scholarly pursuits. Puar argues that configurations of sexuality, race, gender, nation, class, and ethnicity are realigning in relation to contemporary forces of securitization, counterterrorism, and nationalism. She examines how liberal politics incorporate certain queer subjects into the fold of the nation-state, shifting queers from their construction as figures of death to subjects tied to ideas of life and productivity. This tenuous inclusion of some queer subjects depends, however, on the production of populations of Orientalized terrorist bodies. Heteronormative ideologies that the U.S. nation-state has long relied on are now accompanied by what Puar calls homonationalism—a fusing of homosexuality to U.S. pro-war, pro-imperialist agendas. As a concept and tool of biopolitical management, homonationalism is here to stay. Puar’s incisive analyses of feminist and queer responses to the Abu Ghraib photographs, the decriminalization of sodomy in the wake of the Patriot Act, and the profiling of Sikh Americans and South Asian diasporic queers are not instances of a particular historical moment; rather, they are reflective of the dynamics saturating power, sexuality, race, and politics today. This Tenth Anniversary Expanded Edition features a new foreword by Tavia Nyong’o and a postscript by Puar entitled “Homonationalism in Trump Times.” Nyong’o and Puar recontextualize the book in light of the current political moment while reposing its original questions to illuminate how Puar’s interventions are even more vital and necessary than ever. |
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Abu Ghraib accessed June 13 activist acts affect Afghanistan Ahmed Arab argues attacks biopolitical citizenship claims Coalition color communities critique cultural death detainees detention diasporic discourses ethnic Feminism feminist Foucault gay and lesbian gay marriage gender global hate crimes heteronormative heterosexual homonationalism homonormative homophobia homophobic homosexual http://www.planetout.com accessed June Human Rights identity immigrant International intimacy Iraq Iraqi Islamic June 13 June 21 Lawrence-Garner lesbian Lesbian and Gay LGBT LGBTIQ male masculinity military model minority modernity multicultural Muslim narratives necropolitics normative organizations Orientalist Palestinian patriotism perverse PlanetOut political populations press release prisoners produces queer diasporic queer liberal queer theory race racism religious repression same-sex secular September 11 sexual exceptionalism Sikh Sikh Americans social sodomy South Asian space studies suicide bomber surveillance temporality terrorism terrorist Terrorist Assemblages terrorist bodies torture transnational turban U.S. nationalism United violence war on terror women York