Transnational Queer Materialism | The Weekly Read

The Weekly Read for April 27, 2024, is “Transnational Queer Materialism” by Rana M. Jaleel and Evren Savci. The article is the introduction to a recent special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly edited by the authors.

Read this article for free through June 30, 2024.
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The introduction to this special issue takes up the narrations and values produced by the travels of words like queer of color, race, and racial capitalism to both comobilize and retheorize queer of color critique and the content and contours of global racial capitalism. With and beyond the story of US empire and the transatlantic slave trade—from peripheral European engagements with Africa to the circulation of caste in Africa via Indian Ocean worlds—in this special issue the authors examine some of the histories and present modes of capitalist accumulation that are relevant to telling global stories of race and capitalism. A queer/trans lens keeps the authors’ attention trained as well on the arrangements and estrangements of the sex/gender systems that power such narratives of race and capitalism. So positioned, the authors enter ongoing debates on the geopolitics of queer studies, the import of queer materialism, and theorizations of racial capitalism by asking (1) What is the “racial” of racial capitalism?, and (2) What is the “of color” in queer/trans of color critique? The questions form a method for thinking global racial capitalism and queer/trans of color study together—what the authors call transnational queer materialism.

The South Atlantic Quarterly, founded amid controversy in 1901, provides bold analyses of the current intellectual scene, both nationally and worldwide. Published exclusively in guest-edited special issues, this award-winning centenarian journal features some of the most prominent contemporary writers and scholars tackling urgent political, cultural, and social questions. Some issues grow out of current academic debates, concerning, for example, the growing power of finance, narratives of black leadership, and the politics of austerity.

The Weekly Read is a weekly feature in which we highlight articles, books, and chapters that are freely available online. You’ll be able to find a link to the selection here on the blog as well as on our social media channels. Enjoy The Weekly Read, and check back next week for something new to read for free.

Feminism and the Impasse of Whiteness; or, Who’s Afraid of Rachel Doležal? | The Weekly Read

The Weekly Read for October 21, 2023, is Feminism and the Impasse of Whiteness; or, Who’s Afraid of Rachel Doležal? by Robyn Wiegman. The article appears in Feminism’s Bad Objects, a special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly (122:3).

Read this article for free through November 30, 2023.
Buy this special issue and use coupon code SAVE30 for a 30% discount.

Abstract
Who can forget Rachel Doležal—the Africana Studies instructor and head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP who was outed in 2015 as “born white to white parents” after years of presenting herself as a light‐skinned Black woman. By taking up the controversies that have followed Doležal, this paper considers the multifaceted ways that she constitutes a quintessential bad feminist object, even as her “alibi” (which is more a defense) draws on academic feminism’s own anti‐essentialist investment in social constructionist theories of race and racial identity. In doing so, I am not interested in condoning or rescuing Doležal from critical condemnation but in exploring the problem of thinking about Rachel Doležal for feminist analysis.

The South Atlantic Quarterly, founded amid controversy in 1901, provides bold analyses of the current intellectual scene, both nationally and worldwide. Published exclusively in guest-edited special issues, this award-winning centenarian journal features some of the most prominent contemporary writers and scholars tackling urgent political, cultural, and social questions. Some issues grow out of current academic debates, concerning, for example, the growing power of finance, narratives of black leadership, and the politics of austerity.

The Weekly Read is a weekly feature in which we highlight articles, books, and chapters that are freely available online. You’ll be able to find a link to the selection here on the blog as well as on our social media channels. Enjoy The Weekly Read, and check back next week for something new to read for free.

All issues of South Atlantic Quarterly are now online!

We are thrilled to announce that all issues of South Atlantic Quarterly (SAQ), dating back to Volume 1, Issue 1, published in 1902, are now available online!

For over 120 years, South Atlantic Quarterly has been a leading academic journal, publishing cutting-edge research in the humanities and social sciences. The journal has been at the forefront of intellectual inquiry, featuring articles, essays, and reviews that engage with some of the most pressing issues of our time. For the first time, scholars and researchers can now access the full range of the journal’s history, including articles written by some of the most influential thinkers of the past century.

The searchable digital archive offers a wealth of resources for those interested in academic and cultural thought history. As SAQ reflects changing intellectual trends and societal issues over the past century, it provides a unique window into the evolution of scholarship and discourse. We invite you to explore all issues of SAQ and discover the rich intellectual legacy it offers.