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Post by samitch on Mar 23, 2016 0:20:09 GMT
I really enjoyed Rand’s post, largely because of her clear engagement with what has been dichotomized as pride and shame within the queer movement. I found myself a bit confused toward the end of her project when she writes, “I advocate for an engagement with history that acknowledges the inventive and affective work that we do when we narrate our queer pasts and position our queer in relation and/or opposition to them” (p.154). At first, I found this to be one of our generic calls to action that we see in academic work, where scholars seem to always suggest we “be more careful” and “take more consideration” of particular topics. However, she seems to be more transformative of history later on when she remarks, “The past here offers models for how...the present might be renovated not into a replication of what came before, but in the image of the pleasures, intimate arrangements, and social justices of those living now” (p.154). I guess I got lost in what seemed to me like a call to look back on what was misunderstood (queer shame v queer pride) and change those interpretations? (unless I am mistaken). If that is true, I am not sure how we would go about reconfiguring this argument of the past, though perhaps I am misinterpreting her final conclusions. What did you all find were Rand’s calls to action in her conclusion?
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Post by swalker on Mar 23, 2016 6:09:24 GMT
I think Rand's point here is not so much that we have to change the interpretation of the past as it is that we have to understand how the interpretation of gay pride as an affect can demonstrate and create new affects which are less totalizing, and thus more authentic to the groups the affect represents. This call to action becomes clear when you look at how Rand describes the creation of ACT UP in earlier pages. Rand describes the difference between emotion and affect by diving into the historical recollections of ACT UP members (Pgs 132-138). Emotions about the group, about homosexuality, about AIDS all varied wildly, with some members feeling great camaraderie, and others feeling exclusion and burnout. But all of these emotions came together to rally action, rather than promoting inaction in the community. Thus, the affect of pride, even in the midst of emotions of loneliness, fear, and even despair, came to coalesce the groups. Because Rand is relying on the Spinozian understanding of affect, ACT UP should not have been so easy to coalesce, and the group should not have been the totalizing action of the LGBTQ movement at that time. The fact that they are interpreted to be the only movement means we as scholars have the difficult task of identifying how that interpretation shapes today's LGBTQ movement, how a less well known movement (Like Lambda, or the March on Washington) may have influenced the affect of pride, or if there were affects that have been overlooked and thus underrepresented.
I suppose the short answer to your question as I read it anyway is that Rand isn't worried about misinterpretation of the past as much as she is worried about misrepresentation of the dominant affect as the only affect, and the decline of the movement into inactivity if the affect cannot be reinterpreted or resurrected into a more useful affect now.
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