What's Queer about Queer Studies Now," with David. L. Eng and Judith Halberstam in Social Text: What's Queer about Queer Studies Now? ed. with David L. Eng and Judith Halberstam, Vol. 23, Nos. 84-86 (Fall/Winter 2005): 1-18. body politics: políticas del cuerpo en la fotografía latimoamericana by marcelo brodsky and julio pantoja Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-10-14 18:06:18 Boxid IA40258901 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier The book ends with another call for queer collectivity. In a conclusion section entitled “Take Ecstasy with Me,” Muñoz contends that individual transports are insufficient, and that we need to engage in utopian criticism taken as a collective temporal distortion. The convergence of past, present, and future is Heidegger’s meaning of the ecstatic, and Muñoz believes that “taking ecstasy with one another, in as many ways as possible” can perhaps be a way to enact a utopian hermeneutics, from shared critical dissatisfaction to collective potentiality (189). Here, like in several moments along this inspired book, Muñoz jumps from an act of erotic and toxic transgression to a political summoning. And indeed this is the book’s greatest gesture: it bridges mundane acts of intimate and erotic connection to modes of critique and political resistance. Grounding “critique” in utopia and “utopia” in historically situated experiences of minoritarian subjects, Muñoz not only challenges the stagnant political imagination of current queer criticism, but also reframes everyday acts of utopian longing as the labor of (queer) historical materialism. Muñoz attempts to define "queerness" as something we haven't quite achieved yet. It's a radical term that defies the conservative "normalizing" of those on the LGBTQ+ spectrum and aims for something BIGGER and BETTER. It is what he calls "a great refusal":

Heddaya, Mostafa (December 4, 2013). "Queer Theorist José Esteban Muñoz Dead at 46". Hyperallergic. The Vulnerability Artist: Nao Bustamate and the Sad Beauty of Reparation," Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Vol. 16, No. 2, (July 2006): 191–200. Feminist Theory Workshop Keynote "The Brown Commons" (video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huGN866GnZE

The Then and There of Queer Futurity

a b c Muñoz, José Esteban (January 1996). "Ephemera as Evidence: Introductory Notes to Queer Acts". Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. 8 (2): 5–16. doi: 10.1080/07407709608571228. Feeling Brown, Feeling Down: Latina Affect, the Performativity of Race, and the Depressive Position," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 31, No 3 (2006): 675–688.

For an academic text, I found this to be pretty readable, and while I struggled a little when Muñoz was talking about dance and movement, his explication of queer literature and songs (I will never see "Take Ecstasy With Me* the same way) was superb. And of course, the interjection of the personal brought the whole project to life:Virtual Special Issue: José Esteban Muñoz". Queer Acts. Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. Archived from the original on 2016-09-24 . Retrieved 2016-05-04. I would have given this a 3/5, but I think the inclusion of the two extra essays in the new edition actually speak to Munoz’s ability to write with less spurious, less academy-poisoned posture, and reflect my longing for a followup that would’ve built on the many budding ideas in this work. Famous and Dandy Like B. 'n' Andy: Race, Pop, and Basquiat." Pop Out: Queer Warhol. Eds. Jennifer Doyle, Jonathan Flatley and José Esteban Muñoz. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996.