Disidentifications:
Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics by
Jose Esteban Munoz, Munoz Jose, Jose Esteban Muunoz
There is more to identity than identifying with
one's culture or standing solidly against it. José Esteban Muñoz
looks at how those outside the racial and sexual mainstream
negotiate majority culture-not by aligning themselves with or
against exclusionary works but rather by transforming these works
for their own cultural purposes. Muñoz calls this process "disidentification,"
and through a study of its workings, he develops a new perspective
on minority performance, survival, and activism.
Disidentifications is also something of a
performance in its own right, an attempt to fashion a queer world
by working on, with, and against dominant ideology. Whether
examining the process of identification in the work of filmmakers,
performance artists, ethnographers, Cuban choteo, forms of gay
male mass culture (such as pornography), museums, art photography,
camp and drag, or television, Muñoz persistently points to the
intersecting and short-circuiting of identities and desires that
result from misalignments with the cultural and ideological
mainstream in contemporary urban America.
Muñoz calls attention to the world-making
properties found in performances by queers of color-in Carmelita
Tropicana's "Camp/Choteo" style politics, Marga Gomez's
performances of queer childhood, Vaginal Creme Davis's
"Terrorist Drag," Isaac Julien's critical melancholia,
Jean-Michel Basquiat's disidentification with Andy Warhol and pop
art, Felix Gonzalez-Torres's performances of "disidentity,"
and the political performance of Pedro Zamora, a person with AIDS,
within the otherwise artificial environment of the MTV serial The
Real World. "Taking psychoanalytic theory were it has never
been before, Muñoz raises the curtain on queer performance art.
Itself a complex act of disidentification, this vibrant and
venturesome book unveils queer worldmaking at its passionate
best." Diana Fuss, author of Identification Papers
"Demonstrating a thoughtful and acutely
pushy intellect, Muñoz tops a new generation of identity
theorists. Disidentifications beautifully describes transformative
performances of sexuality and race in ways that reverberate
dramatically, further transforming the conditions of possibility
for those who encounter the text, its world of pleasures, images,
and analyses. The sheer value of this archive of Queer
world-making acts cannot be underestimated: as citation keeps the
films, performances, and texts open and animating, queer
commentary like this sustains resistance to and optimism against
the forces of exhaustion." Lauren Berlant, Professor of
English, University of Chicago
"Disidentifications is an innovative and
ground breaking intervention done with theoretical and critical
elegance. Eloquently written, this rich and eclectic text will
'trouble' the intersections of queer, racial, and ethnic
studies." Ana M. López, Tulane University
