author: Halberstam, Judith
title: The Queer Art of Failure
date: 2011
tags:
theme:
Présentation auteur·e·s
[[Halberstam Jack]]
Résumé
Lien avec la thèse
Idées principales
Citations importées le 2026-04-15
If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style. ~—Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant
time to talk about failure.
in losing it imagines other goals for life, for love, forart, and for being.
We can also recognize failure as a way of refusing to acquiesce to dominant logics of power and discipline and as a form of critique.
Very Important or Critical Queer studies offer us one method for imagining, not some fantasy of an elsewhere, but existing alternatives to hegemonic systems.
Very Important or Critical Queer studies offer us one method for imagining, not some fantasy of an elsewhere, but existing alternatives to hegemonic systems.
Other subordinate, queer, or counter- hegemonic modes of common sense lead to the association of failure with nonconformity, anticapitalist practices, nonreproductive life styles, negativity, and critique.
“rejection of pragmatism,”
who lie hidden beneath the glittering surface of market valued success. While Mufioz makes queer- ness absolutely central to cultural narratives of failure, there is a robust literature that marks failure, almost heroically, as a narrative that runs alongside the mainstream.
While Mufioz makes queer- ness absolutely central to cultural narratives of failure, there is a robust literature that marks failure, almost heroically, as a narrative that runs alongside the mainstream. An
why failure must be located within that range of political affects that we call queer.
why failure must be located within that range of political affects that we call queer.
Punk Failures
Trainspotting (1996), is
a n d a g e ’ s “ h i d d e n h i s t o r y o f p e s s i m i s m ” a n d M u f i o z ’ s “ q u e e r u t o p i a
i n t h e f o r m o f n o t e s a n d a n e c d o t e s , t h e o r i e s a n d e x a m p l e s w h a t h a p p e n s w h e n f a i l u r e i s p r o d u c t i v e l y l i n k e d t o r a c i a l a w a r e n e s s , a n t i c o l o n i a l s t r u g g l e , g e n d e r v a r i a n c e , a n d d i f f e r e n t f o r m u l a t i o n s o f t h e t e m p o r a l i t y o f s u c c e s s .
flex their
Poadcast sur La salle de sport et l’homosexualité
T r a c y M o f f
o f f a t t r i e s t o c a p t u r e t h e t e x t u r e o f t h e e x p e r i e n c e o f f a i l u r e , t h e o u t s i d e o f s u c c e s s a n d t h e s t a t i s t i c a l s t a n d a r d t h a t d e t e r m i n e s w h o l o s e s t o d a y b y a f r a c t i o n o f a s e c o n d , a c e n t i m e t e r , a n o u n c e , a n d w h o t o m o r r o w i s l o s t t o a n o n y m i t y
Quentin Crisp tr
Andy Warhol,
Daphne Brooks ma
aesthetics of opacity and locates textual darkness as a “trope of narrative insurgency, discur- sive survival, and epistemological resistance”
darkness of a particular reading practice from a particular subject position, that I believe resonates with the queer aes- thetics I trace here as a catalogue of resistance through failure.
o n t a g c l a i m s , “ L i k e B r a s s a i , A r b u s w a n t e d h e r s u b j e c t s t o b e a s f u l l y c o n s c i o u s a s p o s s i b l e , a w a r e o f t h e a c t i n w h i c h t h e y w e r e p a r t i c i p a t i n g . I n s t e a d o f t r y i n g t o c o a x h e r s u b j e c t s i n t o a n a t u r a l o r t y p i c a l p o s i t i o n , t h e y a r e e n c o u r a g e d t o b e a w k w a r d — t h a t i s t o p o s e ” ( 2 0 0 1 : 3 7 ) .
Interesting References M o n i c a M a j o l i ,
Interesting References Judie Bamber.
a q u e e r s p a t i a l i t y t h a t r e s i s t a n o t i o n o f a r t a s c a p a b l e o f s e e i n g b e y o n d a n d i n f a c t m a k e s a r t a b o u t l i m i t a t i o n , a b o u t t h e n a r r o w n e s s o f t h e f u t u r e , t h e w e i g h t i n e s s o f t h e p a s t , a n d t h e u r g e n c y o f t h e p r e s e n t .
o t h B a m b e r a n d E d e l m a n s e e m t o b e i n s c r i b i n g q u e e r f a i l u r e i n t o t i m e a n d s p a c e .
h e q u e e r s u b j e c t , h e a r g u e s , h a s b e e n b o u n d e p i s t e m o l o g i c a l l y t o n e g a t i v i t y , t o n o n s e n s e , t o a n t i p r o d u c t i o n , a n d t o u n i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , a n d i n s t e a d o f f i g h t i n g t h i s c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n b y d r a g g i n g q u e e r n e s s i n t o r e c o g n i t i o n , h e p r o p o s e s t h a t w e e m b r a c e t h e n e g a t i v i t y t h a t w e a n y w a y s t r u c t u r a l l y r e p r e s e n t .
T h e r e a l p r o b l e m , t o m y m i n d , w i t h t h e a n t i s o c i a l t u r n i n q u e e r t h e o r y a s e x e m p l i f i e d b y t h e w o r k o f B e r s a n i , E d e l m a n , a n d o t h e r s h a s l e s s t o d o w i t h t h e m e a n i n g o f n e g a t i v i t y — w h i c h , a s I a m a r g u i n g , c a n b e f o u n d i n a n a r r a yo f p o l i t i c a l p r o j e c t s , f r o m a n t i c o l o n i a l i s m t o p u n k — a n d m o r e t o d o w i t h t h e e x c e s s i v e l y s m a l l a r c h i v e t h a t r e p r e s e n t s q u e e r n e g a t i v i t y . O
If at first you don’t succeed,” wrote Quentin Crisp, “failure may be your style.”