Queer Public Cultures

I really love Ann Cvetkovich. When I read her book on Lesbian Public Cultures and trauma, I swear my life was changed. At first when reading this article, I was afraid because she announced that her current project on public feeling was taking the place of some of her early work on trauma. I thought her work on trauma theory and sexuality was quite prolific and was worried that she might have toned down her politics. However, in the end, I was able to really see how she is not only negotiating public feeling but how those often come into being because of traumatic events—both public and private. But it is really the way in which, she queers affect, which demonstrates her contribution to the study of affect more broadly—which, is I think, quite a political standpoint. Emotions are not only not private, but they are also always sexualized, making emotions publically sexual. There is something so radical in this because sexuality is still taboo and people, as general rules do not want to think of the sexuality that might play out in traumatic situations or within their own emotions. As confused as I am about sexuality, the even more confused and yet intrigued I am by affect and their connections together. As Cvetkovich writes, “The embrace of affect within queer studies has also enabled new forms of personal voice in academic work, including criticism based in memoir, public intellectual work that seeks a general audience, or overt declarations of love and other investments in our intellectual projects”(463). I find this to be one of the most compelling pieces of Cvetkovich, as it relates to my work. I find that the concept of affect, which, I interpret as meaning public feeling, is very useful especially in understandings of new ideas of queer theory. Whereas queer theory used to be white centered, incorporating new and performative voices, especially those of queer people of color actually end up utilizing a different affective process. In this sense these new voices, these personal voices not only used a different form of affect but they also created new affects with the personal voices of scholars of color. The voices of queer people of color have changed, and richened, queer projects calling academics to continue doing queer work but in a more responsible, and what I would call, intersectional way. In my mind I am drawn to performance artists like Carmelita Tropicana, who is a subversive queer Chicana, who performs a very outward sexuality, while being a lesbian. She draws on elements of camp and drag to make her performances lively, while, always critiquing, dominant structures. I recall a video of hers where she is imprisoned with a bunch of other women. The subtext of the performance was their queerness. In the end the women perform a subversive song together in the jail cell, singing about their lost loves, like lipstick (potentially a metaphor for another woman.) Anyway, these women, including Tropicana, all do a very public, very visual performance of feeling their sexuality. I think with affect, that one thing I have to always keep in mind, is that it isn’t just about public feeling, but the ways those public feelings are performed and used, and where the power is located in public feeling. In the end I am wondering if there is no moment or emotion left unmediated by the social and cultural world in which, we live? I am really excited to discuss this topic and to keep reading materials along these lines.