What is theory in academia? Does it have a use? Should it have a use? Who gets to decide how and by who it's used? This is an open space to take the academic formality out of such conversations and make it available for anyone to state their thoughts on the matter.
You can call me Guava (they/them), and I am a graduate student working on their doctorate! This blog is my effort to share knowledge with others both in and outside of the classroom! Please enjoy, and read the Rules and BYI!
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Talking ( ) Theory Library:
Most if not all the readings discussed in this blog can be found in the library! It is organized alphabetically by author's last name and available for download. Click the links below to navigate the library:
Sections:
Full Library
Books
Higher Education
Queer Theory
Subsections - Higher Ed:
New? Theory Review
Access & Opportunity for (Formerly) Incarcerated Individuals
Access & Opportunity for Immigrant, Undocumented, & Refugee Communities
Access, Success, & Belonging
Curriculum and Pedagogy Matters
The Critical Role of Geographies
Visioning & Understanding College Access & Success
Subsections - Queer Theory:
Antinormativity
Feeling Down and Brown
Quare Studies and Beyond Sexuality & Gender
The Importance of Affect
Trans Studies vs. Queer Theory (Or Is It?)
What does Queer Do?
What's Queer Theory?
Why Queer Theory?
Some materials that will be discussed here I do not have available in the library. If you need help getting access to a book or article, please reach out to me via [email protected] and I will be happy to assist!
"In the Kitchen" Series
What's more nostalgic than sitting down and doing your homework on the kitchen table, snacking on a plate of food as you tried your best to figure out what you needed to do next?
In the Kitchen is the series where I write a short piece about a topic on the blog, share a few sources, and invite you all to share your own thoughts. With each segment, you are welcome to send your own piece to the mailbox, submit a longer piece of writing, or interact with each post itself as you see fit.
There are currently four types of pieces for In the Kitchen:
"Tea and Coffee": Very small snippets, can be about topics on the blog, short replies for asks, and much more casual discussions. It's like taking a sip.
"Bite-sized": short pieces under 1,000 words. A quick, snack on a topic.
"Meals": Any pieces over 1,000 words. More akin to a formal essay for topics. Like eating a main with sides and a drink.
"Gifts from the Neighbors": For any submissions sent, whether it's bite-sized or a meal. Always thank the neighbor if they bring you some food!
Ever thing about labels? Not like the label on your jar of jam, but the label you'd use to describe yourself. Or perhaps the adjective is more accurate, do you think about the adjective you'd use to describe yourself? Or the ones people would use to describe you? How about the work you do? Do you want people to know your work because of your label, or because of your work? Both? Neither? Does it matter?
Yes, or I think so anyways. Which is what we discuss today.
What makes a writer queer? A painter? A poet? An actor? An on that same level, what makes their work queer? Is just being queer enough, or must their work have something about it that screams "THIS IS QUEER!!!" and if so, how are we defining it?
I ask these questions because of writings that stick out to me, one from the writers (though this is a very simple descriptor in my opinion) Gloria Anzaldúa and Ariel Goldberg. Both make a point in their work (the specific writings listed below in the bibliography) to question what makes their work queer. Or more specifically, the point of a label and it's use.
Anzaldúa (2009) would argue that a label, when in front of a title like "writer", is one that positions a person (163). Positions them how? For her, it's implying that an identity is not just socially constructed, but also a cultural other. Consider how things are labeled at a library, what gets sectioned off. It wouldn't be hard to find the Black section, or Chicano, or queer, or Asian, as they tend to be labeled differently according to those labels, even if the genres themselves are different, or different writings like novels versus poetries.
"Different from what Guava?" you may ask. Why, different from white, heterosexual, middle-class writers! Have you noticed? Walking into your local library, or looking up books on Goodreads, don't writings by people whose labels are considered "other" from the "standard" get presented first by those labels, rather than the writing themselves? Yet, is it not also important to label one's writings clear and center as being "queer" for example, to show that such works are being not only produced, but in some cases also fairly available with just a click of a button or a swipe from a store's bookshelf? This is especially so when you consider Anzaldúa stance on the use of labels: she labels herself with different adjectives because she doesn't want those parts of herself to be erased: "My labeling of myself is so that the Chicana and lesbian and all the other persons in me don’t get erased, omitted, or killed. Naming is how I make my presence known, how I assert who and what I am and want to be known as. Naming myself is a survival tactic." (164).
Goldberg (2020) also points this out, actually pulling from Anzaldúa herself, in questioning the point of labels and the importance: where it labeling art and writing as "queer" can affirm power, there is also a power in deciding to not label your work as such (10). After all, if your work is going to be labeled in a way because it is "other" from work done by "typical" writers, then refusing to allow yourself to be labeled as such is an act of resistance. This can be especially so when you come from multiple perspectives. Rare is it that someone can identify themself with just one aspect. Take myself for example, yes I am queer but I am also Chicane, but also a feminine-presenting person, but also working-class, but also highly educated. All these aspects intersect in ways that means that you can take away one part of myself because they interact with each other in a way that affects how I myself interact with the world (if this sounds familiar, it's because you have most likely heard of Kimberlé Crenshaw and her coining intersectionality). I'm sure many of you reading this can also look into yourself and note how different aspects of yourself do the same.
However, on that same note, what is then necessary to label (or not label) something as "queer" art or writing? Goldberg asks us this as well, questioning how much of "queer literature" is not being thought of as such because it is not only not labeled as such, but because it is cross-genre and represents multiple subjectivities (10)?
It again goes back to the question then, what make something queer? How are we defining queer? Anzaldúa brings in an example in a review of her book Borderlands/La Frontera (which is a great read and I highly recommend it) that in this review, the reviewer (another Chicana lesbian, Cherríe Moraga who also has some great reads) implied that she wasn't a "real" lesbian because she did not stress her lesbian identity enough in her work. Here Anzaldúa tells readers that this implies that there is a "lesbian writer", one who only focuses on lesbian issues (which are issues about sexuality) (165). While there isn't a doubt that there are plenty of lesbian writers who do choose to have their work focus on being lesbian, is that all we should expect from lesbian writers. Or more specifically, is that how we should label these writers and their writing?
I ask you this, if you are an artist, writer, creator in some way: do you only want to be known as a [label] writer who only writes about [label] themes and issues? I don't argue that it isn't important to have such work labeled so, it's the fact that Anzaldúa and Moraga were labeled as Chicana lesbians that peaked my interest in their work and flourished that into seeking my doctorate. But again, it's a label that marks one's work as "other" and has been expected to speak about only issues that pertain to that label.
What would you think? How would you what to go over the issue of labels? If you were to have a work become famous and highly regarded, how would you want it and yourself to be known? Better yet, how do you think it would end up being known?
Bibliography
Anzaldúa, Gloria. 2009. “To(o) Queer the Writer--Loca, Escritora y Chicana.” In The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader, edited by AnaLouise Keating. Duke University Press.
Immigrant, Undocumented, & Refugee Communities in Higher Education
I think that now more than ever in the last decade it is important to discuss the access and opportunities that immigrant, undocumented, and refugee student do or don't have when it comes to higher education. This is especially true when you consider how the political climate within the last decade has led to increasing restrictions for immigrant and refugee populations, with the later being largely ignored in higher education research, policies, and practice (Yi & Kiyama 2018).
When it come to succeeding in college or university, there are a variety of factors that influence that success for immigrant and refugee students. For many, a few of the first factors considered would be cultural acculturation or culture mismatch, alongside language acquisition, and it's unfortunately expected in this climate that immigrant and refugee students would face bias, discrimination, and racism.
It's unfortunate that in the United States, public sentiment and bias over refugees and refugee resettlements has been low; even when it's shifted over time and attitudes were more sympathetic, it's shifted again, such as the anti-Muslim sentiment that has increased since the 9/11 attacks, which had an affect on the public's opinion on Syrian refugees (Yi & Kiyama 2018,15). Discrimination and racism in general is a significant barrier in their success, especially when they experience these things on campus.
In a study conducted at 2 institutions in Colorado, Muñoz and Vigil (2018) looked at how undocumented and DACA college students experienced their campus climate, in which they focused on racists nativist microaggressions.
Quick pause! I'm sure that a good chunk of people have experienced and can identify a microaggression if they are from a marginalized group, but for others perhaps they haven't come across the terms themselves, or other might not know what they are at all. If you are unfamiliar with what these are, here's a quick definition: "related to campus climate, racial microaggressions occur in the form of overt racism (assaults), subtle insults, or invalidations of racial realities" (Muñoz & Vigil 2018, 3). They further specify that microaggressions have been defined as "subtle insults" that are directed towards people of color.
But at a structural level, racial microaggressions can be seen through symbols, social practices, social codes, physical symbols, and images. The term racist nativism comes into factor at the intersection of race and legality, where most simply put values are assigned to apply value to the native, who is perceived white, over that of the non-native, who is perceived to be people and immigrants of color, which that value then allows people to defend the (white) natives right to dominance, as defined by Huber et al. (2008). It's important to note that "native" in this definition is not including actual Native/Indigenous Americans to the United States, which is why both words used together is important. It's a racist nativism, where the perceived "real" native to the country are White Americans.
This is a topic that I will go into more depth with, as we are getting quite long with this post, but this is the tip of the iceberg on how immigrant and refugee students are able to succeed in higher education.
The next issue on this topic will be a bigger "Meal" discussing the various factors impacting immigrant and refugee students' access and success in their institutions, with a particular focus on how they get resources and why it's particularly important for us to pay attention to this area of research!
But do you have anything you want to share? Do you know of a resource at your school that is a great assistance for immigrant, migrant, and refugee students? Please share here and let's discuss and spread the word if so!
Bibliography
Huber, Lindsay Perez, Corina Benavides Lopez, Maria C. Malagon, Veronica Velez, and Daniel G. Solorzano. "Getting beyond the ‘symptom,’acknowledging the ‘disease’: Theorizing racist nativism." Contemporary Justice Review 11, no. 1 (2008): 39-51.
Muñoz, Susana M., and Darsella Vigil. 2018. “Interrogating Racist Nativist Microaggressions and Campus Climate: How Undocumented and DACA College Students Experience Institutional Legal Violence in Colorado.” Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 11 (4): 451–66. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000078.
Yi, Varaxy, and Judy Marquez Kiyama. 2018. Failed Educational Justice: Refugee Students’ Postseconday Realities in Restrictive Times. ASHE-NITE Paper Series. https://assets.noviams.com/novi-file-uploads/ashe/pdfs-and-documents/past-conf-documents/Failed-Educational-Justice-FINAL-2.pdf.
Have you ever considered how the location of colleges and universities are a factor in what school someone can or will go to? Of course you have, but have you really considered it? Have you considered how certain types of institutions, like for-profit colleges or proprietary institutions, target certain populations became of their proximity? What happens to people in rural areas, suburban areas, or even certain urban areas where access to something as essential as public transportation isn't available to them? What are the roles of community colleges and universities in recruiting these students?
Am I ever going to stop asking questions and get to the point? Click the read more to find out now and learn about the importance of geographies in college choice and what education "deserts" are!
I can only speak to my experience in the United States, but I'm sure this applies to plenty of places around the world, but do you know that there are stretches of land that go up to 116 miles (or 187 kilometers) with only one high school to service the entire area? Did you know that if you stretch that area a bit more, to 156 miles (251 kilometers) that would be the distance between the two closest colleges in a particular area of the American Southwest?
Let me emphasize that in this particular stretch of land, there are a handful of small towns and communities with people that cannot access a grocery store, let alone a school, without driving a hour or two to get to the town with a store. With the cost of education rising every year, alongside housing, food costs, and transportation, students in general are opting to stay living at home while they complete their education. But even that is a privilege for some, because how is that even possible when your nearest college is over 100 miles away and is only accessible by car. And that's assuming that you even know that this hypothetical college exists, as outreach done by these institutions are often limited to the areas near them.
The scenario I've described above is what Hillman (2016) describes as an "education desert" which is an area where no colleges or located or the options are scarce and thus a student's options for higher education are constrained by their community's educational infrastructure, also known as the "geography of opportunity". But don't let the mention of desert fool you, these deserts aren't made by accident, as theses "deserts" are often found in the poorest and most racially minoritized communities in the United States. When people in these areas, their probability of enrolling in a college decreases as the physical distance between them and a college increases, which is called "distance elasticity". Of course, this again affects the people found most often in these deserts: low income, first-gen, rural, and racial minoritized students.
There is an illusion of choice when it comes to being a potential student in these areas, as commuting zones are a huge factor in being about to attend a school, with Hillman's (2016) study showing that in the area he conducted research it was shown that large white populations had more public 2 year and private 4 year colleges near them, while for Hispanic communities their commuting zones were limited to only 2 year public colleges and less likely to have public 4 year universities. And if they did, these universities were more selective. The distance also had a factor in educational attainment, as the closer you were to a 4 year college, the better the educational attainment was for students.
Keep in mind that this isn't random or happen stand, but low attainment and college access are and stay this way because of policy makers who decide where these institutions are built. This extends back into public transportation as well.
As I mentioned before, some places have no public transportation whatsoever, like in rural areas. But even in areas with public transportation, the busing system can be tiring, or even demeaning for students. In Dache's (2022) article on analyzing bus-riding from barrios to colleges through a qualitative GIS study, they found that the design of the busing system between a barrio in Northeast Rochester to seven area colleges made it difficult for people to travel outside of the city limits, which is where most of these institutions were located. In the study's case, the busing system privileged suburban and wealthy areas, where spaces like pick up spots were cleaner and more comfortable compared to areas accessed by working-class, lower-income, Black and Latinx people (24). The institution in charge of maintaining these areas (RTS) valued maintaining these wealth, white areas, placing value there while neglecting the maintained of the areas servicing poorer people of color.
There's also the inconvenience of long wait-times and the inconsistencies of pick up times, which makes the transportation system unreliable when it should be a system that provides a good, consistent service to its community. The types of messaging and advertisements that varied between bus stops (college advertising was minimal on the routes that Dache observed) which shows a subtle (and not so subtle) ways that public transportation plays a role in identifying who and who isn't a prospective college student (21-22). In fact, Dache observed that the buses with higher concentrations of passengers of color had very little college-related messaging, but plenty of criminalizing messaging, while the vice versa happened for buses serving Whiter and wealthier riders (25). For Dache, the public system of transportation is a part of racialized college access geographies, where the very system itself is telling the people in it who does and doesn't belong in a college as well as making the spaces meant to service a community unwelcome.
There is no easy solution to this matter, though a great starting point would be policy makers addressing these issues and finding a way to address them, though I imagine that it would take time. In the case of public transportation, reliability and advertising of course varies greatly in different areas and these studies are specific to the United States.
So in the meantime, what are schools and students to do? Are you in an "education desert"? If you've used public transportation for commuting to school, or currently use it, what do you notice about your ride and the signage around you?
Bibliography
Dache, Amalia. 2022. “Bus-Riding from Barrio to College: A Qualitative Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analysis.” The Journal of Higher Education 93 (1): 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.1940054.
Hillman, Nicholas W. 2016. “Geography of College Opportunity: The Case of Education Deserts.” American Educational Research Journal 53 (4): 987–1021. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216653204.
The topic in the kitchen today is asking: what is queer theory? What is it tied to? What if as a theory it's not doing what we need it to do?
Some people might see the word queer and think of it as an slur, and it is used that way by some. For others, it's an identity. You'd be partially right, as many, including myself, use that term as a way to identify themselves regarding the sexuality, gender, or both!
So if you're a bit younger (or maybe a bit clueless like myself), it might surprise you that there is a whole realm of academic who hate the queer has become synonymous for some with an identity. From here, we can start to introduce the question: what's queer theory?
While an exact date is part to pinpoint, but generally we can look at the 1990s as the when the actual use of the term "queer theory" started being used by scholars. It's a type of critical theory that looks and critiques society's ideas of gender and sexuality, going against those ideas, and challenging the binaries that come from the structures of cis-heterosexual normativity. At least, that's how I would introduce what queer theory is to someone new to it.
Perhaps this way come as a surprise to some, but queer scholars have self-critiqued their very own field, and even the use of the word "theory", for ages. Often between each other, their past selves, and some even critique that queer theory has become so heavily intwined as a discipline focusing on sexuality and gender!
Lots of fighting (metaphorical, I don't think queer scholars are actively fist fighting each other over what they wrote in papers). So it's hard to come to a solid idea of what it is.
If you want my opinion (which is very subjective do not cite me as a scholarly source), I think of queer theory as a way of thinking and being. Queerness is a very personal matter, it's a politically charged word and what is the political if not personal?
As a way of thinking about the world, it cannot be assimilated, isolated, or defined to a single discipline, which is what queer scholars Berlant & Warner (1995) would say. For them, queer theory isn't necessarily the right word, as it's not just an academic object, but rather it's "queer commentary" that has precedents in "aesthetic genres" (I believe they mean things like poetry, art, film, etc here) and journalism (343). In fact, Berlant & Warner would go further to say that queer theory isn't a theory of anything in any particular way, but that queer commentary can as it belongs to a discourse that is connected to the publics.
Berlant & Warner really emphasize that where queer theory as a label endangers itself by taking the very nature of queerness (transgressive and destabilizing) and throwing it in a box that allows it to be molded into something that become tangible, and thus institutionalized as sorts. Queer commentary does no such thing according to them, as it instead bring together the discussion of the private and public together, such as discussion matters of sex (such as the AIDS epidemic, a disease connected to sex and the public, things that are typically seen as separate).
"The labor of bringing sexual practices and desires to articulacy has tended to go along with a labor of ambiguating categories of identity. Just as AIDS activists were defined more by a concern for practice and for risk than by identity, so queer commentary has refused to draw boundaries around its Constituency. And without forgetting the importance of the hetero-homo distinction of object choice in modern culture, queer work wants to address the full range of power-ridden normativities of sex." (345).
This in mind, is there actually a queer theory? Or should we be talking about commentary? The two scholars mentioned would at the time of righting that article I'd say argue that yes, we should be discussing queer commentary, not theory.
So, then I ask, why is it that we still call it queer theory? If queerness is meant to be something that takes the private, like sex, and brings it to the surface, then what else can we define as queer if we are defining it by it's ability to be distinct from the norms of society?
Bibliography
Berlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner. 1995. “What Does Queer Theory Teach Us about X?” PMLA. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (Cambridge, United Kingdom) 110 (3): 343–49.
The topic for today's post is asking: what the hell is theory and what are we doing here? Join me as I go through explaining what theory is, how it is used, and going over a few basic theories that will be discussed on this blog.
Yes, I know what the word theory literally means, in the dictionary theory means "a scientifically acceptable or plausible general principle or body of principles based on data and offered to explain phenomena". The examples they use under that definition bring up things like Einstein's theory of relativity and something about economic theory. I bet that when most people hear the word, they tend to thing of theories in natural and physical sciences, biology, physicals, chemistry and all that jazz. Those are all important of course, but I want to talk about theory as it's used in social sciences and the humanities.
So I will ask, what is theory?
A professor once explained it to me that theory is a way of understanding the world and giving that understanding meaning. You can take that meaning and use it to apply understanding in a different context. That was a great way of explaining to me that made sense.
Unfortunately, I still have a hard time understanding most theories, regardless of the field, partially because of the vocabulary and language (aka...jargon, ugh) used that makes most papers hard to understand if you don't already know the material. How is a student new to the a field supposed to learn if they're expected to also already have all this background knowledge to go with it?
I can hear it now: Well that's why you go to school Guava, to learn about it! If you want to talk about it, then you should already know about it!
Okay, but consider my counterpoint: no.
It might be easy to say things like that, especially on reflex if you're someone like me who has been going to school for years, or someone who has been in your perspective field for decades, or someone who just really likes to dig deep into Wikipedia pages on the daily (I'm joking on that last part, though I do enjoy looking through Transformers wikis).
But to go deeper into my counterpoint: there are a lot of fields of study that tend to discuss people who are marginalized in society. Consider some of the people that will be brought up in this blog: people who've been formerly incarcerated, those who are undocumented, refugees, BIPOC, people who identify as trans, queers, women, unhoused. Some people might identify with one or more of these, myself included, and when historically you are marginalized, the fact of the matter is that you don't have equal access to things like education.
Despite this, so much in social sciences and the humanities talks about marginalized populations: why aren't they doing as well in school? What are their barriers? What proof do we need to show that they are struggling? How can we improve xyz? Do you get the gist? People who historically and current have limited access to institutions that have the education, resources, and power to enact change don't have enough people from these populations getting a say in how they want such change to occur.
(Ugh, I hate saying that. Saying populations sounds so clinical!)
And while it's definitiatly improved from 60, 40, 20, even 10 years ago! There's still a lack of representation of marginalized groups in places like university and college classrooms where the up and coming new theories, research, and academics are being born.
So, I feel that having a place where we can ask, "what the fuck is theory?" that isn't enclosed in a classroom where you need to pay 3 bucks an hour and pay 10k a semester to have a student ID is beneficial in the long run.
Now that I have that out of the way, let me go ask the question that I keep repeating but don't actually answer: theory!
What's Theory? ...Answering for real this time:
I'll repeat the explanation I got from my professor, cause I do think it's a good way to understand how theory is used: theory is a way of understanding the world and giving that understanding meaning. You can take that meaning and apply it to different contexts to make sense of something that is happening.
This is a fairly broad way to define theory, but it works because this blog is interdisciplinary, which means that it touches on two or more academic disciplines, specifically higher education and queer studies. The former is already an interdisciplinary discipline on it's own, whereas the former is specific to studying different aspects of colleges and universities. Despite this, I will be going over both throughout this blog and inviting you all a space to speak your mind about the topics brought up in the hopes that this will be your own makeshift "classroom".
While Tumblr natives will be familiar with the tagging system and how to navigate through blogs, this blog will be available to others who may not be familiar with how Tumblr works, so this page is for breaking it down!
The Basics
Tumblr does not have an algorithm like other social media sites, so if you want to keep updated with this blog and have new posts show up, you will need to click the follow button for this and any other blogs you might like! This blog is open though for anyone to view, so having an account is not required to view, but is required to send asks, submissions, or private messages.
You can choose to get notifications every time there is a new post, click the three dots next to the follow button, and select "Get notifications" to get Tumblr notifications.
If you want to save any posts that are interesting to you, you can either reblog, which will essentially share the post via your own blog, or like a post which will save it under your personal likes but not necessarily visible to visitors to your blog.
For searching:
The search bar in Tumblr can be a bit wonky for users, even those familiar who are familiar with the site. All posts will be tagged according to their content, which will be added as "Popular Tags" so that they will show up in the search bar when clicked.
For example: if you are looking for post discussion "Queer Theory", then you can click the tag when it shows up as a popular tag. You can click this in the main site's search bar which will bring up any posts with these words or tags, or use the blog's search bar which will only search this blog specifically.
You can also click on the tags listed at the end of the post itself to find other posts that have the same tag. This is how you can find specific authors discussed throughout the blog.
Interacting with the blog:
There are 3 direct ways to interact with the blog (and me, Guava!)
Asks and Submissions: Both of these are forms of interaction that will be sent to me to view first before I post them to the blog. Asks are typically meant for interaction with the blog owner directly, such as asking for clarification on a post, asking for resources, or requesting types of posts! Submissions are works of your own (such as an essay or art work) that you want posted through this blog. I encourage anyone interacting with this blog to send asks if they have questions about the materials on the blog or just want to do an open chat with myself and everyone viewing the blog! If you have a piece of writing that you want to share that you believe pertains to the materials on this blog, send them and I am happy to publish them on this blog as your platform!
Reblogs: These are the main form of interacting with blogs on Tumblr. It essentially reposts/shares an original post through your blog, along any comments you'd like to share, and shares it with anyone you follows you! Everyone is welcome to reblog any posts here and interact in anyway that they choose!
Transparency
I have been using Tumblr for over a decade, so I am familiar with this site and realize that some things that seem obvious to me in the interface may not be so for an visitors not familiar with the site!
I also realize that some material I discuss on here may not be accessible to everyone (especially if you're not in a higher institution with library access).
If you have any questions, need assistance navigating the blog, or need help accessing materials, please send me a private message or email me at [email protected].
This is a space for myself and people interacting with the blog to talk about (queer) theory
What's the purpose of this blog?
There are two parts to this blog. One part is a place to sort of write my thoughts into the void and see if the void answers back. I have a hard time understanding things sometimes and find just writing down my thoughts helps. The other part is to share those thoughts, and hopefully have others share back. The hope is that this blog could be used as a starting point for information on (queer) theory, as well as give access to articles, books, and readings that would normally be behind a paywall for people who don't have access to a university/college library that will pay for that paywall.
Can people interact with your posts and send asks?
Absolutely! This is exactly what this blog is for, to open up the space from only classrooms (or only specific classrooms) and make it available to the community as a whole.
Why do you have the parentheses?
To be very honest? Aesthetic. It looks nicer somehow. But also because we will be discussing other theory on this blog, so we can put any word in the paratheses, such as (queer) theory one week, but maybe we will be discussing (black feminist) theory the next week! So the parentheses are there to be blank for us to switch out! But also because it looks nice.
Do you have other questions that aren't answered here? Send an ask or PM! I will answer and update the FAQs as needed.
Rules
Sending an ask to the mailbox or submitting a suggestion
Please remain kind, polite, and respectful; this goes for interacting with posts as well.
You can send an ask countering, debating, or disagreeing with points made as long as you are interacting in good faith and remain respectful.
Sending asks whenever the mailbox is open is always welcome. Though I will try my best to answer all asks, I may not be able to get to all.
If you have your own articles, books, or readings that you would like to share, you are very welcome to submit them!
Be aware that anyone that is seen interacting with posts and users interacting with posts in bad faith, general rudeness, or being disrespectful may be blocked as to keep this blog's environment friendly and open. Behave in the same way you would in a classroom of your peers!
Before you interact
While this is a space were debate is welcome, coming here with the intent to cause argument for the sake of argument, or becoming aggressive will result in blocking.
This is a space open for both adults and youths interested in (queer) theory, so all asks, submissions, and interactions with posts must be kept relatively clean of explicit content, though mature topics and art may be discussed (there will also be discussion about what is considered "erotic" versus "pornographic" if you are interested in that topic).
I will have my DMs open, but will not respond to inquiries not pertaining to this blog (i.e. you know me from another blog and want to ask me question about it). However, you can send an ask and request it to be answered privately if you have a question or inquiry that you'd like to remain private.
The rules and BYI are subject to change, please return here every so often to see if anything has been added or updated.
