Essays explore the contemporary contexts, activism, and cultural productions of queer youth and their communities.
Engaging a wide range of cultural practices, including zine-making, drag performance, online chatting, music, gay porn, and organizing resistance, the essays in Susan Driver s Queer Youth Cultures explore the creative, political, energetic, and artistic worlds of contemporary queer youth. The research in this collection bridges the perspectives of academics and queer youth, and the voices of the youth resonate throughout the analyses of their communities and lives. Through a variety of methodological approaches, the contributors bring into focus the institutional regulations of youth sexuality and gender, the complex and changing embodied experiences of queer youth, and the visual and textual languages through which the experiences of the youth are represented. Rather than seeing queer youth as victims, contributors celebrate the creative ways that sexual and gender minority youth forge subcultures and challenge exclusionary and heteronormative ways of understanding young people.
"...Driver s excellent collection draws together a variety of contributions that challenge the tendency within research and public debate to think about young people who defy prevailing expectations in relation to gender and sexuality predominantly in terms of deficit Taken as a whole, Queer Youth Cultures provides a rich and textured reflection on some of the key concerns emerging from the increased cultural visibility of and academic debate about queer young people." SIGNS
Social sciences professor Driver has compiled a unique, thoughtful collection on queer youth subcultures, framed by a commentary drawing strongly on queer theory The collection unpacks clear categories of gender, sexuality, and age, and challenges the ubiquitous victim narrative currently framing queer youth. CHOICE
This book begins with the premise that queer youth are not pathologized, can and do exercise agency, and are legitimate actors in the public sphere. I am extremely pleased to see a book that successfully integrates transgender youth, politics, and culture as these topics have been sorely missing in ostensibly LGBT work. Susan Talburt, Director, Women s Studies Institute, Georgia State University
The essays provide an analytical rather than a merely celebratory view of the projects and cultures as well as critiques of mainstream LGBT cultures. The collection is well timed as LGBT youth issues become more visible and mainstream LGBT politics become increasingly assimilated. Gwendolyn Alden Dean, Director, LGBT Resource Center, Cornell University
Contributors include Cass Bird, Megan Davidson, Cristyn Davies, Susan Driver, Andil Gosine, Judith Halberstam, Valerie Harwood, Anna Hickey-Moody, Mark Lipton, Ziysah D. Markson, David McInnes, Mary Louise Rasmussen, Jackie Regales, Melissa Rigney, Neal Ritchie, Jama Shelton, Zeb J. Tortorici, and Angela Wilson.
