The Queer Turn in Composition Studies: Reviewing and Assessing an Emerging Scholarship

Abstract

This article surveys and analyzes nearly fifteen years of scholarship, situating itself at the intersection of LGBT/queer studies and composition/rhetoric studies. The authors argue that paying attention to queerness provides unique opportunities to engage with students in challenging discussions about how the most seemingly personal parts of our lives are densely and intimately wrapped up in larger sociocultural and political narratives that organize desire and condition how we think of ourselves. Three moves in queer composition scholarship are identified “confronting homophobia, becoming inclusive, and queering the homo/hetero binary” and implications of these moves for composition are discussed.