
Disidentifications
Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics
Jose Esteban Munoz(Author)
University of Minnesota Press
Published on 1. May 1999
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-0-8166-3015-8 (ISBN)
Description
There is more to identity than identifying with one's culture or standing solidly against it. JosE Esteban MuNoz looks at how those outside the racial and sexual mainstream negotiate majority culture-not by aligning themselves with or against exclusionary works but rather by transforming these works for their own cultural purposes. MuNoz calls this process "disidentification," and through a study of its workings, he develops a new perspective on minority performance, survival, and activism.Disidentifications is also something of a performance in its own right, an attempt to fashion a queer world by working on, with, and against dominant ideology. By examining the process of identification in the work of filmmakers, performance artists, ethnographers, Cuban choteo, forms of gay male mass culture (such as pornography), museums, art photography, camp and drag, and television, MuNoz persistently points to the intersecting and short-circuiting of identities and desires that result from misalignments with the cultural and ideological mainstream in contemporary urban America.MuNoz calls attention to the world-making properties found in performances by queers of color-in Carmelita Tropicana's "Camp/Choteo" style politics, Marga Gomez's performances of queer childhood, Vaginal Creme Davis's "Terrorist Drag," Isaac Julien's critical melancholia, Jean-Michel Basquiat's disidentification with Andy Warhol and pop art, Felix Gonzalez-Torres's performances of "disidentity," and the political performance of Pedro Zamora, a person with AIDS, within the otherwise artificial environment of the MTV serialThe Real World.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 255 mm
Width: 178 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
413 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8166-3015-8 (9780816630158)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
JosE Esteban MuNoz (1967-2013) was assistant professor of performance studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.