South Atlantic Review
Due Date: 06-15-2021
What is queerness’s relation to normativity today? In the nearly thirty years since Michael Warner’s seminal definition of queer as a “more thorough resistance to regimes of the normal,” queerness has come to bear a plethora of political uses and identitarian definitions. This special issue of South Atlantic Review seeks to explore the possibilities of going “post-normative.” Our preference for the post prefix gives queerness a number of potential definitions in relation to Warner’s “regimes of the normal.” Is queerness in excess of or somehow beyond whatever is deemed normal? Does queerness, to think with José Esteban Muñoz, come after the normal “here and now”? Is normativity as a term of socially routine behavior something of the past? Through the investigating of these questions, this issue attempts to theorize what queerness offers in the wake of normativity.
The question mark in the title of this special issue additionally signals our attentiveness to critiques of “normative” as a coherent object of analysis, such as Robyn Wiegman and Elizabeth A. Wilson’s claim that queerness’s fundamental rivalry with normativity has become so accepted that it limits our understanding of queerness, as well as Cathy Cohen’s assertion that what might be initially considered normative can still be an aspect of marginalization. Therefore, we also welcome contributions exploring the doubts of going post-normative. How might queer identities need norms to define themselves against? Can we ever be post-normative? Are there post-normative re-creations of normativity? Prospective contributions may be from any textual archive, discipline, or historical period. We also welcome interrogations of various cultural and historical artifacts.
Prospective contributors should submit abstracts of less than 500 words to Horacio Sierra (hsierra@bowiestate.edu) and Austin Svedjan (asvedj1@lsu.edu) with “Post-Normative Submission” in the subject line by 15 June 2021. Contributors will need to have an active SAMLA membership at the time of publication.