Women and Gender Studies InstituteWomen and Gender Studies Institute
Stuart Hall has already told us in his classic essay “Cultural Identity and Diaspora:” “…all discourse is ‘placed’, and the heart has its reasons.”
The concept “diaspora” leaves us reaching for something else. Here, we propose Black/queerpolis as a supplement. After the Atlantic revolutions and Maurice Bishop, after structural adjustment, after Reagan, Thatcher, AIDS, and crack (and of course there is no closure to any of these “afters”), after “diaspora” but before reparations and before freedom; there is Black/queerpolis. It represents the ongoing process of composing a distinct and instructive global counterpublic articulated through “worlds in motion.” Here a triangular trade of affect, materiality, and historicity is held in tension by the force of desire. In this engagement, we will meditate on Black/queerpolis—when is it? How might we best narrate it? Why? For, or to, whom?