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

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0941920445 ISBN 13: 9780941920445

Publisher: Bay Press, 1997

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.

Review:

Moving beyond finding new ways to critique literature and philosophy, queer and postmodern theory delves into analyzing the concrete world. Aaron Betsky's Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire and David Bell and Gill Valentine's Mapping Desire were groundbreaking studies, exploring how the material world shaped and was shaped by homosexual cultures and communities. In Queers in Space: Communities, Public Places, Sites of Resistance, Gordon Brent Ingram (along with Anne-Marie Bouthillette and Yolanda Retter) brings together more than 30 essays, meditations, studies, and fiction excerpts mapping how gay men and lesbians view, interpret, alter, and ultimately change the worlds in which they live. Writers as varied as Pat Califia, Sarah Schulman, David Bell, and Joan Nestle weigh in along with architects, geographers, and social scientists to delineate the relationship between gay people and the physical world. Weighing in at more than 500 pages, lavishly illustrated and beautifully produced, Queers in Space is a welcome addition to the growing literature of queer and urban studies.

From the Publisher:

We are pleased to announce that Queers in Space is the recipient of a 1997 Lambda Literary Award in the category of Non-fiction Anthology. Thank you to the Lambda Literary Foundation for recognizing the book with this award.