The contributors to Left of Queer offer a detailed examination of queerness and its nearly three-decade academic institutionalization. They interrogate contemporary material conditions that create socially and politically acceptable queer subjects and identities; trace the development of queer studies as a brand of US area studies predicated on American culture and exceptionalism; and bring together queer theory and Marxism to reject claims that the two fields are incompatible. In examining these themes, the contributors explore how emergent debates in three key areas--debility, indigeneity, and trans--connect queer studies to a host of urgent sociopolitical issues. Taking a position that is politically left of the current academic and political mainstreaming of queerness, the essays in this issue examine what is left of queer--what remains outside of the political, economic, and cultural mandates of the state and the liberal individual as its prized subject. Contributors. Neel Ahuja, Aren Z. Aizura, Paul Amar, Toby Beauchamp, Marquis Bey, Jodi A. Byrd, Christina Crosby, Aniruddha Dutta, Treva Ellison, Fatima El-Tayeb, David L. Eng, Jules Gill-Peterson, Cristina B. Hanhardt, Kwame Holmes, Janet R. Jakobsen, Eng-Beng Lim, Petrus Liu, Tavia Nyong'o, Jasbir K. Puar, Sherene Seikaly, Eliza Steinbock

Most but not all of them gay, these writers disagree about many things, but they share a common frustration with ideologically out-of-touch gay-activist leaders and "queer studies" theorists, and a dismay with a puerile and counterproductive "queer" image that represents neither the lives nor the goals of most gay people.

This special double issue of Social Text reexamines the term queer and the mainstreaming of gay and lesbian identity in context of the global crises of the late twentieth century. These include the growth of neoliberalism; the clash of religious fundament

DIVProminent queer theorist offers a "low theory" of culture knowledge drawn from popular texts and films./div

Extending the recent rapprochement among queer studies, Marxist theory, and political economics, this timely issue responds to the current crisis of capitalism. Contributors consider how methodologies of queer studies are specially poised to reveal the global, historical, and social dimensions of capitalist economic relations. Using queer hermeneutical tools in combination with globalization studies, secularization studies, and queer-of-color critique, contributors examine global economic history and the ideological collusion of capitalist production and biological reproduction. With a special emphasis on the regulation and policing of sexuality, the issue explores the assertion that capitalism is only made possible by systems of racial, sexual, and national exploitation, and recuperation from periods of crisis depends on the increasingly violent reassertion of those forms of exploitation. Queer studies has, from the outset, engaged vigorously with the question of how cultures metabolize social and economic developments. Several contributors explore the shared queer and Marxist fascination with concepts of utopia and their mutual reliance on theories of totality with respect to the intersecting forces of sexuality, desire, and economic value. Providing an expansive theoretical perspective on current and historical economic patterns, the queer methodologies at work in this collection illuminate and advance our understanding of the complex structures of global capitalism. Jordana Rosenberg is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Amy Villarejo is Professor in the Department of Theater, Film, and Dance at Cornell University. She is the author of Lesbian Rule: Cultural Criticism and the Value of Desire, also published by Duke University Press. Contributors: Lisa Marie Cacho, Christina Crosby, Lisa Duggan, Roderick Ferguson, Kevin Floyd, Carla Freccero, Grace Hong, Janet Jakobsen, Heather Love, Robert McRuer, Fred Moten, Tavia Nyong'o, Jasbir Puar, Lisa Rofel, Jordana Rosenberg, Gayle Salamon, Dean Spade, Amy Villarejo, Meg Wesling

This Major Reference series brings together a wide range of key international articles in law and legal theory. Many of these essays are not readily accessible, and their presentation in these volumes will provide a vital new resource for both research and teaching. Each volume is edited by leading international authorities who explain the significance and context of articles in an informative and complete introduction.

Introduction : beginning with Stigma -- The Stigma archive -- Just watching -- A sociological periplum -- Doing being deviant -- Afterword : the politics of stigma.