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Year of Queer/Feminist/Trans* Study
Heather Love - Queer Method and the Postwar History of Sexuality Studies
Delivered November 14th, 2013. This talk traces the roots of sexuality studies in postwar social science, arguing that the flattening, observational approach of researchers in deviance studies and microsociology offers a model for queer critics today. Love considers the case of Erving Goffman, whose account of stigma situates deviance in scenes and interactions, not in people. Goffman exerted a profound influence on works such as Laud Humphreys’ Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places and Esther Newton’s Mother Camp. These texts offer an “ecological” view of sex and gender deviance that sets aside affect, motivation, and desire to describe highly specific interactions in concrete settings.