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- All Subjects: Black Studies
- Creators: Bailey, Marlon M
- Creators: Anderson, Lisa
Description
The purpose of my dissertation project is to understand how Same-Gender Loving (SGL) Black Christian men negotiate their sexuality and spirituality in spaces that are not always accepting of SGL people, by examining on how Black SGL men perform their sexual identities within hegemonic institutions that often deny their existence or outwardly seek to exclude them from their communities. I have identified three scripts that Black SGL men often follow within Black religious settings. The first script that SGL people often follow in the church is that of deliverance-- confessing their same-gender desires and maintaining that they have been delivered from those desires The second is "don't ask don't tell" performed by men who many believe and suspect of being SGL; so long as they do not publicly affirm these beliefs they are able to hold a variety of positions in their religious communities.. The last script involves accepting one's same-gender desires and also affirming one's Christian beliefs, proclaiming that the two are not at odds with one another. I examine how these scripts and/or others are performed by and on the bodies of Black SGL males in two distinct sites. The first is the career and music of former gospel star Anthony Charles Williams II (Tonex / B. Slade), who has utilized the three scripts at various times in his career. The next site is that of theatre, where I explore how these scripts have been employed in dramatic texts. By reading Christian Black SGL performance through its theological parameters, I aim to discern the avenues in which Black people in the United States are able to perform same-gender sexual identities in spaces that are constructed as "homophobic," and in so doing combat the narrative of hyper-homophobia in Black communities.
ContributorsChester, Tabitha Jamie Mary (Author) / Anderson, Lisa (Thesis advisor) / Leong, Karen J (Committee member) / Honegger, Gitta (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
“(Dis)Locating the Sensual: Black Queer Placemaking in Brooklyn, New York” investigates the impact that gentrification has on Black queer subject formations and Black queer public culture. My research explores the interplay between social oppressions, the Black quotidian queer body, and lived sensations within two Black queer bars located in the epicenter of white middle class gentrification in Brooklyn, New York: Langston’s Brooklyn and Happiness Lounge. In doing so, my project expands Western conceptions of space while charging feminist and queer theories to explore interpersonal and personal dimensions of lived experiences that are conditioned by modes of normalization set by white supremacy. I use archival research and ethnographic methods to explore the way that Black queer people utilize space and the spatial dimensions that happen in and across the spaces they regularly occupy. I also collect and examine building information, such as the owners’ respective rental agreements, building permits, documented building violation(s), and incurred fees by the owners to understand who owns the land, who manages the properties, and the role of the state in regulating space. Additionally, “(Dis)Locating the Sensual” analyzes three analytic memos from my ethnographic fieldnotes including desire, spatial performance, and sensations to apprehend the implications of performance on a Black queer sense of place. Taken together, this data renders a complex picture of Black queer place-making that both resists and exceeds the structural constraints of racial capitalist expansion. My work both dialogues with and contributes to fields that are rarely drawn into conversation: Urban geography and Black queer studies. By analyzing sensations, nostalgia, and atmosphere within Langston’s and Happiness Lounge, I chart the ways in which gentrification continues to displace physical Black queer social spaces and impact the atmospheres and sensations that are unique to their vanishing social spaces. I introduce Black queer spatiality as a method that is informed by tracing Black LGBT spatial sensations and atmospheres; this analytic enables the linking of physical spatio-historical processes of extraction to the sensual geographic experiences that are emplaced in Black queer social spaces.
ContributorsMillhouse, Ricardo (Author) / Bailey, Marlon M (Thesis advisor) / Shabazz, Gregg R (Committee member) / Fonow, Mary M (Committee member) / McHugh, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
This thesis closely reads black gay pornography and NeoSoul music from the 1990s to theorize the digital transformations of the adult entertainment and music industries during the commercialization and boom of the Internet. Acknowledging black sex workers and musical artists as knowers and agitators whose labor and artistry teased and troubled these transformations, I employ an American Studies analytic to archives and genres that highlights the economic and historical undergirding of black sexual economies in the United States. I argue that black musical artists and sex workers facilitate a mapping of black sexual economies and an ecosystem of labor and pleasure upended by the commercialization of the Internet that pronounces a dialogic relationship between the adult entertainment and music industries, black musical artists and sex workers, and black musical and pornographic genres. Through close reading and nut chasing methods, I intimately describe the musical and sexual performances of sex workers and musical artists in three pornographic films and one music video to analyze the complexities of instrumentation and cinematography during this technological era, how they narrativize sound and place, and the sensorial and physiological effects of witnessing and listening to these performances. In this project, I ask: how does porn and music remember sound and place, how does black music and black gay pornography narrate black sexual economies and geographies, and how did the commercialization of the Internet in the 1980 and 90s change black musical genres and (black) gay pornography?
ContributorsAnderson, K (Author) / Bailey, Marlon M (Thesis advisor) / Roane, JT (Committee member) / Anderson, Lisa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Methodological Reparations is a 2-study multi-methods inquiry aimed at illuminating important nuances for engaging counter hegemonic empirical inquiries for Black, gender expansive and Black LGBTQI+ communities. If Black gender expansive youth are studied, they are often studied within the larger LGBTQI+ umbrella. Unfortunately, this makes them vulnerable to compulsory heterogenderism which often obscures their unique experiences transgressing racialized gender norms and with racialized gender oppression. This study makes methodological considerations called methodological reparations that begin to address the ways empirical research often negates, misunderstands, and obscures students’ identities as singular, stable over time and aligned with their sex assignment. It is important for researchers, data scientists and educators to challenge these hegemonic assumptions to ensure that Black gender expansive communities are visible and to ensure that education policies are data-driven, inclusive and effective. The United States Transgender Survey and the Gay and Lesbian Students Education Network have begun to conduct surveys that begin to address the complexity of gender within LGBTQI+ populations. Their surveys reveal horrific school climates that LGBTQI+ youth of color experience especially Black LGBTQI+ youth. The first study in this dissertation is a mixed methods study that focuses on Black gender expansive students’ experiences. The second study responds to the first study by providing an example of inclusive Black LGBTQI+ curriculum taught through a Black queer pedagogical approach. Since the presence of LGBTQI+ inclusive curriculum in schools has been linked to increased feelings of safety in schools in Black LGBTQI+ student populations, this study showcases James Baldwin’s final novel Just Above My Head, as a piece of blues literature that discusses racialized homophobia in a culturally relevant way. Baldwin’s work can be an important tool for Black LGBTQI+ students who do not have access to Black queer curriculum taught through a Black queer pedagogical approach.
ContributorsClement, Valencia (Author) / McGuire, Keon (Thesis advisor) / Bertrand, Melanie (Committee member) / Bailey, Marlon M (Committee member) / Kim, Jeongeun (Committee member) / Durand, E. Sybil (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022