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In this special issue of SAQ, a prominent group of contributors consider the vicissitudes of queer theory since its inception in the early 1990s. The issue considers what—if anything—lies at the heart of queer studies other than its interest in sexuality. With essays intended to be more reflective than scholarly, the authors contemplate the future of queer theory by meditating richly on its past. Whether viewing sexuality as the epitome of the social or of the anti-social, the essays form a sustained meditation on sex as a source of delight and trouble, as a subject of serious inquiry, and as a political conundrum.Contributors explore the interdisciplinarity of the field and its relation to other fields, such as critical race studies, feminism, and lesbian and gay studies. Several essays recall the birth of queer theory in the days of the feminist-sex wars and the first AIDS-related gay male deaths; some contributors evoke the days of the field’s infancy while others are pleased to embrace its maturity. The sheer number and breadth of the topics considered—everything from Hank Williams and the paradoxes of Native American sovereignty to the declension of atoms in the writings of Lucretius, from Henry Darger’s “naive” depiction of girls with male genitals to the experience of being single or of falling asleep—reflect the continuing power of queer theory a generation after its inception.Contributors Lauren BerlantMichael CobbAnn CvetkovichLee EdelmanRichard Thompson FordCarla FrecceroElizabeth FreemanJonathan GoldbergJanet HalleyNeville HoadJoseph LitvakMichael MoonJos? Esteban Mu?ozJeff NunokawaAndrew ParkerElizabeth A. PovinelliRichard RambussErica RandBethany SchneiderEve Kosofsky SedgwickKate Thomas
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Janet Halley and Andrew Parker Introduction T o be honest, we didn’t know what to expect when we asked potential contributors to this issue of SAQ to assess the current state of queer thinking by reflecting on, among other things, what in their work isn’t queer. Though we couldn’t predict what our authors would make of this question, we had a variety of reasons for posing it in these terms. In the first place, we’d been hearing from some quarters that queer theory, if not already passé, was rapidly approaching its expiration date, and we wanted to learn from others whether or how this rumor might be true.1 We knew, of course, that the activist energies that helped to fuel queer academic work in the United States have declined sharply since the early 1990s, when the books that would become foundational for queer theory first began to appear.2 With Gender Trouble and Epistemology of the Closet now close to reaching their age of majority, it didn’t entirely surprise us that a recent issue of a journal could ask, “What’s Queer about Queer Studies Now?”—with now an obviously pointed way of announcing a departure from earlier habits of thought.3 But the authors around whom queer theory crystallized seem to have spent the past decade distancing South Atlantic Quarterly 106:3, Summer 2007 DOI 10.1215/00382876-2007-001 © 2007 Duke University Press 422 Janet Halley and Andrew Parker themselves from their previous work: in recent years, for example, Judith Butler has been writing about justice and human rights, Michael Warner about sermons and secularism, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick about Melanie Klein and Buddhism.4 In what sense, we asked ourselves, are these writers’ current interests commensurate with their earlier (or concurrent) work on sexuality—if, indeed, they are? Does the very distinction between the sexual and the nonsexual matter to queer thinking and, if so, when, where, and how? Can work be regarded as queer if it’s not explicitly “about” sexuality? Does finding oneself “after” queer theory differ—in terms of desire, location, temporality, loyalty, antagonism, comradeship, or com