Translating the Queer: Body Politics and Transnational Conversations

What does it mean to queer a concept? If queerness is a notion that implies a destabilization of the normativity of the body, then all cultural systems contain zones of discomfort relevant to queer studies. What then might we make of such zones when the use of the term queer itself has transcended the fields of sex and gender, becoming a metaphor for addressing such cultural phenomena as hybridization, resignification, and subversion? Further still, what should we make of it when so many people are reluctant to use the term queer, because they view it as theoretical colonialism, or a concept that loses its specificity when applied to a culture that signifies and uses the body differently?

H?ctor Dom?nguez Ruvalcaba is a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas, Austin, where he teaches queer and gender issues in Latin American literature, film, and culture.
H?ctor Dom?nguez Ruvalcaba is a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas, Austin, where he teaches queer and gender issues in Latin American literature, film, and culture.