Queer Studies Overview

Principles

Definition

Queer studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that critically investigates categories of sex, gender, and sexuality, particularly challenging heteronormative and cisnormative frameworks. It analyzes social, cultural, political, and historical formations of identity, power, and resistance from perspectives that foreground non-normative experiences and critiques of normalization.

Ontological type

Core Theories

Intersectionality

Methodological Approaches

Key developments

Key Figures

Intersectional Formation era

Joshua Gamson [1] is associated with University of California, Berkeley [3] and Yale University [4] in this era. Gamson [1] argued in Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory [6] that queer politics should be embedded within social theory through coalition-building and analysis of sexuality across race, class, gender, and geography. Ken Plummer [2] at University of Essex [5] contributed to this era. Plummer [2], of University of Essex [5], advanced life-story and narrative approaches through Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change, and Social Worlds [7] and I Can't Even Think Straight: "Queer" Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology [8], highlighting how personal narratives illuminate power relations and social worlds and helping to institutionalize qualitative methods in queer studies.

Futurity and Institutions era

José Esteban Muñoz [1] is associated with New York University [3] in this era, and his work Cruising utopia: the then and there of queer futurity [6] helped establish queer futurity as a critical frame. His analysis introduced queer futurity as a lens to critique norms of national belonging and speculative time, with Cruising utopia [6] serving as a foundational reference for imagining collective futures in this era. Jane M. Simoni [2] is affiliated with Harvard University [4] and Stanford University [5], and her work Measuring multiple minority stress: The LGBT People of Color Microaggressions Scale [7] advances measurement of minority stress. This empirical contribution provided instruments to assess discrimination and minority stress in queer communities, informing institutional discourse and policies within higher education and beyond in this era [7].

Platformed Transnational Governance era

Laura J. Shepherd [1] is a scholar linked to The University of Sydney [3] and UNSW Sydney [4] in this era. Her key contributions in this era include advancing queer international relations through critical analysis of sovereignty and the will to knowledge, as articulated in Queer International Relations: sovereignty, sexuality and the will to knowledge [7], which helped reframe platformed governance and visibility for queer subjects. Benjamin Hanckel [2] is associated with King's College London [5] and University of Tasmania [6] in this era. His key contributions include the article ‘That’s not necessarily for them’: LGBTIQ+ young people, social media platform affordances and identity curation [8], which highlighted how platform affordances shape identity strategies and youth experiences online in transnational governance contexts.