A Critical Inquiry into Queer Utopias

This anthology is a symposium on queer space and queer utopias. Through the presentation of empirical work by contemporary queer theorists this book aims to create a critical dialogue about the emergence of queer spaces and the ways in which they aim to further queer futurity. This cutting edge volume pushes current debates about the future of queer identified individuals out of the purely theoretical realm and demonstrates how queer futurity is currently being shaped by individual behavior in praxis. It celebrates the possibility that these individuals are in fact attempting to craft queer spaces where hegemonic heterosexist discourses cease to regulate bodies. As opposed to rejecting the notion that social and political organization can lead to emancipatory possibilities in the future, this text explores the ways in which figuring the potential for crafting utopic spaces is not just intellectually rewarding but can transform the lives of individuals and society at large.

Angela Jones is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Farmingdale State College, State University of New York, USA. She is the director of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. Jones obtained her PhD from the New School for Social Research. Her research interests include: African American history, gender, sexuality, and social movements. Jones is the author of African American Civil Rights: Early Activism and the Niagara Movement (Praeger, 2011) and The Modern African American Political Thought Reader: From David Walker to Barack Obama (Routledge, 2012). She is also the author of numerous scholarly articles, which have been published in peer-reviewed journals.

Introduction
PART I: THEATRE PERFORMANCE
1. It's about time, Queer Utopias, and Theatre Performance; Stephen Farrier
2. Silent Islands, Plastic Subversions: Queer/Deaf Enchantments of Soviet Stagnation; Anastasia Kayiatos
PART II: EROTICIZED SPACES
3. Queer Utopias in Painful Spaces: BDSM Participants Resisting Heteronormativity and Gender Regulation; Brandy L. Simula
PART III: COMMUNITY AND COUNTERPUBLICS
4. Queerlandia: Portland as a Potential Queer Utopia; Maura Kelly and Dylan Waller
PART IV: QUEER POLITICAL ACTIVISM
5. The Utopia of Europe's LGBTQ Visibility Campaigns in the Politics of Everyday Life: The Utopic of Social Hope in the Images of Queer Spaces; Pawel Leszkowicz and Tomasz Kitlinski
6. Utopian Pragmatics: Bash Back! and the Temporality of Radical Queer Activism; Hilary Malatino
7. Post-Closeted Culture and Lesbigay Families: Already Present Queer Utopias; James Joseph Dean and Steven Seidman
8. Recrafting Kinship: Queer Parents with Children; Laura Heston