Queers in Space: Communities, Public Places, Sites of Resistance - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0941920445 ISBN 13: 9780941920445

Publisher: Bay Press, 1997

Synopsis

Cultural Studies. Gay and Lesbian Studies. Urban Planning. Exploring the interactions between queer identity, experience, and activism and a range of communal and public spaces, QUEERS IN SPACE: COMMUNITIES, PUBLIC PLACES, SITES OF RESISTANCE opens up a new direction in gay and lesbian studies. From gay space in Mexico City to the now legendary baths of New York and San Francisco, QUEERS IN SPACE travels to bars, parks, beaches, neighborhoods, and cities to follow the expansion and transformation of queer communities beyond the gay ghetto. By focusing on the geography of queer social relationships QUEERS IN SPACE raises critical and timely questions about the role of social space in shaping identities, the meaning of communal space for marginalized peoples, and the significance of public spaces for social visibility. Edited by Gordon Brent Ingram, Anne-Marie Bouthillette, and Yolanda Retter.

About this title

About the Author

Born and raised in Montreal, Anne-Marie Bouthillette is a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia, where she received an M.A. in Human Geography. She has done extensive research in gay male and lesbian spatialization, and recently contributed to the anthology, Margins of the City. She is currently the executive director of the French-speaking women's network of British Columbia, Reseau-femmes du Colombie-Britannique. Gordon Brent Ingram completed his doctorate in environmental planning at Berkeley in 1989 and has been active in gay/queer and environmental politics for over twenty years. He designs networks of parks, open spaces, and other protected areas, and he has been particularly concerned with social equality and "marginality" in conservation planning and design of public lands. He sometimes teaches at the University of British Columbia, and he practices out of San Francisco and Vancouver. Yolanda Retter is an itinerant community worker, a gadfly on the body politic, and a veteran of the lesbian civil wars. In the 1970s she worked with Lesbian Feminists (L.A.), in the 1980s with Lesbians of Color (L.A.), and in the 1990s is a lesbian history and visibility advocate/activist. She is ABD in American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She assembled the Lesbian History Project web site on the Internet.

From the Back Cover

Queers in Space is a unique collection about the "where" of our lives - the places that we as lesbians, gays, and queers of various stripes have inhabited, are inhabiting, and must and will occupy in the future. It is provocative as well as thought-provoking, amusing as well as useful. A must read for the fin-de-millenaire as well as the 21st century. - Lillian Faderman, Author of Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in 20th Century America. An eclectic collection of essays plentifully interspersed with haunting photographs that add up to an audacious and promising new direction in queer scholarship. In this beautiful and provocative book, the evocation of lesbian and gay access to and creation of places and spaces ties the local to the global and the back alley to utopian desire. - Esther Newton, Author of Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America's First Gay and Lesbian Town. Queers in Space represents the direction in which queer thinking and writing should be moving - grounding theory in the specifics of lives lived and struggles fought in actual times and places; connecting the dots of sexuality, community, and activism to arrive at images that reflect our complex and diverse experiences. As peoples whose worlds are created beneath the surfaces and in the interstices of public spaces queers understand the importance of safe harbors. At the same time we must insist on the right to be ourselves in the public world. - Larry Gross, Professor, The Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania; Author of Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing. From cruising on the net to cruising in the park, Queers in Space provides a welcome return of real life to the usually abstract domain of queer theory. You won't like or agree with everything in this book. You will learn a lot. - Simon Watney.

Reviews

Scholars of all stripes have begun to examine how people creatively use their environments to mark their culture. This work is especially appealing because the essays are written by both academics and thoughtful community members. The 30 pieces here are essays investigating community, politics, sexuality, and architecture. The well-known spaces of gay bathhouses are explored, as are not-so-well-known places such as the lesbian bars and beaches of the 1950s. The editors' goal is not mere description, however; they seek to provide an intelligent context for supporting affinities between all sexual minorities in an effort to threaten heteronormativity. As always, the publisher designs a stunningly beautiful book integrating text, photographs, and graphics into a seamless whole. Recommended for collections in sexuality, sociology, and human geography.?David S. Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bay Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0941920445
• ISBN 13: 9780941920445
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 530
• Editor: Retter Yolanda, Bouthillette Anne-Marie, Ingram Gordon Brent