Black Queer Freedom: Spaces of Injury and Paths of Desire (New Black Studies Series)

In this book, GerShun Avilez argues that queerness, here meaning same-sex desire and gender nonconformity, introduces the threat of injury and that artists throughout the Black diaspora use queer desire to negotiate spaces of injury. The space of injury does not necessarily pertain to a particular architecture or location; it concerns the perception and engagement of a body. Black queer bodies are perceived as social threats, and this perception results in threats (physical, psychological, socioeconomic) against these bodies. The space of injury describes the potential threat to queer bodies that lingers throughout the social world. Attending to such threats and challenging them constitute defining elements in Black queer artists’ work. In each of the two parts to the book, the author examines how perceptions of the Black queer body in different environments create uncertainty for that body and make it a contested space because of racial and sexual meaning. Part 1 focuses on movement through public space (through streets and across borders) and on how state-backed interruptions seek to inhibit queer bodies. Part 2 explores movement through institutional spaces (prisons and hospitals), which seek to expose the queer body to make it vulnerable to control. Ultimately, the book insists that desire and artistic production function as means to queer freedom when actual policies and legislation fail to ensure civic rights and social mobility. Whether engaged in same-sex desire or gender nonconformity, black queer individuals live with being perceived as a threat while simultaneously being subjected to the threat of physical, psychological, and socioeconomical injury. Attending to and challenging threats has become a defining element in queer black artists' work throughout the black diaspora. GerShun Avilez analyzes the work of diasporic artists who, denied government protections, have used art to create spaces for justice. He first focuses on how the state seeks to inhibit the movement of black queer bodies through public spaces, whether on the street or across borders. From there, he pivots to institutional spaces—specifically prisons and hospitals—and the ways such places seek to expose queer bodies in order to control them. Throughout, he reveals how desire and art open routes to black queer freedom when policy, the law, racism, and homophobia threaten physical safety, civil rights, and social mobility.|Acknowledgments Introduction: Freedom in Restriction Part One. Threatened Bodies in Motion Chapter 1. Movement in Black: Queer Bodies and the Desire for Spatial Justice Chapter 2. Geographies of Mobility: Migratory Subjects and the Uncertainty of Itineracy Part Two. Bodies in Spaces of Injury Chapter 3. Uneven Vulnerability: Queer Hypervisibility and Spaces of Imprisonment Chapter 4. The Shadow of Institutions: Medical Diagnosis and the Elusive Queer Body Conclusion: Lives of Constraint, Paths to Freedom Notes Index | A 2020 Seminary Co-op Notable Book — A 2020 Seminary Co-op Notable Book | GerShun Avilez is an associate professor of English at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism . Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Freedom in Restriction Part One: Threatened Bodies in Motion Chapter 1. Movement in Black: Queer Bodies and the Desire for Spatial Justice Chapter 2. Geographies of Risk: Migratory Subjects and the Uncertainty of Travel Part Two. Bodies in the Space of Injury Chapter 3. Uneven Vulnerability: Queer Hypervisibility and Spaces of Imprisonment Chapter 4. The Shadow of Institutions: Medical Diagnosis and the Elusive Queer Body Conclusion: Lives of Constraint, Paths to Freedom Notes Index Back cover