The Estrangement Principle

In eight smart, provocative essays, writer and artist Goldberg (The Photographer) examines queer art--literary, visual, and performance-based--and questions the value of fraught, slippery labels such as queer that are variously deployed and interpreted. Goldberg shows the limits of labels, observing that calling art "queer" excludes certain art that shares quite a lot with queer art. They remind readers that identities, and communities--the multiplicities of art and humankind--resist being reduced to easy, well-bounded categories. Goldberg effectively queers readers' perspective on consuming and producing cultural products, reminding them to recursively look at language, their contexts, and what their purposes may be when they include and exclude: "Labeling art and writing 'queer' affirms the power of those who are consistently silenced." This book is a passport to the bold, complex world of queer art, literature, theory, politics, and community. (Sept.)
Copyright 2016 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

This book might contain the seeds of queer canon, which is sorely needed. Certainly any canon can be expanded but let's start somewhere. Let's start here. Ariel understands the limits and demands of definitions and refuses to be a spokesperson, and what felt a bit policing in the beginning feels much less so by the end.--Kenyatta Jean-Paul Garcia "Tarpaulin Sky"