"Halberstam's marvelous new book combines fierce argumentation, vivid description, and astute as well as hilarious commentary. The author not only provides a powerful critique of common defenses and dismissals of 'postmodernism, ' but offers a redefinition of 'identity politics' for the new millennium as well."
--Lisa Duggan, author of "Twilight of Equality?: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy"

"The wide-ranging scope of (Halberstam's) work both serves to make her book accessible to many kinds of readers as well as to show the wide scope in which her argument registers. This makes her book a joy to read. Similarly, her wit and ability to capture large theoretical terms in rich and layered (and funny!) images contributes to the pleasure of this book of 'theory.'"
--"The Cream City Review"

"This small seductive book pours warmth as Halberstam confesses and connects movements of pop culture and high art to a deeper understanding of the potentials of the body. She includes us in her world and its privileged understanding of her subject...."In a Queer Time" displays Halberstam's sophisticated understanding of contemporary culture in a plain and engaging tone."
--"Pop Matters"

"An extremely honest and provocative book. Judith Halberstam's "In A Queer Time and Place" both validates and admires the beauty of the transperson as well as the genderqueer in this new era of identity performance. It is an incredible portrayal of the partnership between trans issues and gay and lesbian issues that I applaud with a full heart."
--JD Samson, from the band Le Tigre

"Halberstam's text is academically important, critiquing identity politics andexamining uncommon but essential transgender representations in art, film, and society."
--"The Bloomsbury Review"

"The mere raising of these issues is important to anyone thinking about them, and the possibilities she suggests for following them further make "In a Queer TIme and Place" an essential addition to the queer studies shelf."
--"Rain Taxi"

In her first book since the critically acclaimed "Female Masculinity," Judith Halberstam examines the significance of the transgender body in a provocative collection of essays on queer time and space. She presents a series of case studies focused on the meanings of masculinity in its dominant and alternative forms--especially female and trans-masculinities as they exist within subcultures, and are appropriated within mainstream culture.

In a Queer Time and Place opens with a probing analysis of the life and death of Brandon Teena, a young transgender man who was brutally murdered in small-town Nebraska. After looking at mainstream representations of the transgender body as exhibited in the media frenzy surrounding this highly visible case and the Oscar-winning film based on Brandon's story, "Boys Don't Cry," Halberstam turns her attention to the cultural and artistic production of queers themselves. She examines the "transgender gaze," as rendered in small art-house films like "By Hook or By Crook," as well as figurations of ambiguous embodiment in the art of Del LaGrace Volcano, Jenny Saville, Eva Hesse, Shirin Neshat, and others. She then exposes the influence of lesbian drag king cultures upon hetero-male comic films, such as "Austin Powers" and "The Full Monty," and, finally, points to dyke subcultures as one site forthe development of queer counterpublics and queer temporalities.

Considering the sudden visibility of the transgender body in the early twenty-first century against the backdrop of changing conceptions of space and time, In a Queer Time and Place is the first full-length study of transgender representations in art, fiction, film, video, and music. This pioneering book offers both a jumping off point for future analysis of transgenderism and an important new way to understand cultural constructions of time and place.

Delves into the long history of Asian American sporting cultures, considering how identities and communities are negotiated on sporting fields Through a close examination of Asian American sporting cultures ranging from boxing and basketball to spelling bees and wrestling, the contributors reveal the intimate connection between sport and identity formation. Sport plays a special role in the processes of citizen-making and of the policing of national and diasporic bodies. It is thus one key area in which Asian American stereotypes may be challenged, negotiated, and destroyed as athletic performances create multiple opportunities for claiming American identities. This volume incorporates work on Pacific Islander, South Asian, and Southeast Asian Americans as well as East Asian Americans, and explores how sports are gendered, including examinations of Asian American men's attempts to claim masculinity through sporting cultures as well as the "Orientalism" evident in discussions of mixed martial arts as practiced by Asian American female fighters. This American story illuminates how marginalized communities perform their American-ness through co-ethnic and co-racial sporting spaces.

A roadmap to sex and gender for the twenty-first century, using Lady Gaga as a symbol for a new kind of feminism
Why are so many women single, so many men resisting marriage, and so many gays and lesbians having babies?
In "Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal," J. Jack Halberstam answers these questions while attempting to make sense of the tectonic cultural shifts that have transformed gender and sexual politics in the last few decades. This colorful landscape is populated by symbols and phenomena as varied as pregnant men, late-life lesbians, SpongeBob SquarePants, and queer families. So how do we understand the dissonance between these real lived experiences and the heteronormative narratives that dominate popular media? We can embrace the chaos With equal parts edge and wit, Halberstam reveals how these symbolic ruptures open a critical space to embrace new ways of conceptualizing sex, love, and marriage.
Using Lady Gaga as a symbol for a new era, Halberstam deftly unpacks what the pop superstar symbolizes, to whom and why. The result is a provocative manifesto of creative mayhem, a roadmap to sex and gender for the twenty-first century, that holds Lady Gaga as an exemplar of a new kind of feminism that privileges gender and sexual fluidity.
Part handbook, part guidebook, and part sex manual, "Gaga Feminism" is the first book to take seriously the collapse of heterosexuality and find signposts in the wreckage to a new and different way of doing sex and gender.

Delves into the long history of Asian American sporting cultures, considering how identities and communities are negotiated on sporting fields Through a close examination of Asian American sporting cultures ranging from boxing and basketball to spelling bees and wrestling, the contributors reveal the intimate connection between sport and identity formation. Sport plays a special role in the processes of citizen-making and of the policing of national and diasporic bodies. It is thus one key area in which Asian American stereotypes may be challenged, negotiated, and destroyed as athletic performances create multiple opportunities for claiming American identities. This volume incorporates work on Pacific Islander, South Asian, and Southeast Asian Americans as well as East Asian Americans, and explores how sports are gendered, including examinations of Asian American men's attempts to claim masculinity through sporting cultures as well as the "Orientalism" evident in discussions of mixed martial arts as practiced by Asian American female fighters. This American story illuminates how marginalized communities perform their American-ness through co-ethnic and co-racial sporting spaces.

"Halberstam's marvelous new book combines fierce argumentation, vivid description, and astute as well as hilarious commentary. The author not only provides a powerful critique of common defenses and dismissals of 'postmodernism, ' but offers a redefinition of 'identity politics' for the new millennium as well."
--Lisa Duggan, author of "Twilight of Equality?: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy"

"The wide-ranging scope of (Halberstam's) work both serves to make her book accessible to many kinds of readers as well as to show the wide scope in which her argument registers. This makes her book a joy to read. Similarly, her wit and ability to capture large theoretical terms in rich and layered (and funny!) images contributes to the pleasure of this book of 'theory.'"
--"The Cream City Review"

"This small seductive book pours warmth as Halberstam confesses and connects movements of pop culture and high art to a deeper understanding of the potentials of the body. She includes us in her world and its privileged understanding of her subject...."In a Queer Time" displays Halberstam's sophisticated understanding of contemporary culture in a plain and engaging tone."
--"Pop Matters"

"An extremely honest and provocative book. Judith Halberstam's "In A Queer Time and Place" both validates and admires the beauty of the transperson as well as the genderqueer in this new era of identity performance. It is an incredible portrayal of the partnership between trans issues and gay and lesbian issues that I applaud with a full heart."
--JD Samson, from the band Le Tigre

"Halberstam's text is academically important, critiquing identity politics andexamining uncommon but essential transgender representations in art, film, and society."
--"The Bloomsbury Review"

"The mere raising of these issues is important to anyone thinking about them, and the possibilities she suggests for following them further make "In a Queer TIme and Place" an essential addition to the queer studies shelf."
--"Rain Taxi"

In her first book since the critically acclaimed "Female Masculinity," Judith Halberstam examines the significance of the transgender body in a provocative collection of essays on queer time and space. She presents a series of case studies focused on the meanings of masculinity in its dominant and alternative forms--especially female and trans-masculinities as they exist within subcultures, and are appropriated within mainstream culture.

In a Queer Time and Place opens with a probing analysis of the life and death of Brandon Teena, a young transgender man who was brutally murdered in small-town Nebraska. After looking at mainstream representations of the transgender body as exhibited in the media frenzy surrounding this highly visible case and the Oscar-winning film based on Brandon's story, "Boys Don't Cry," Halberstam turns her attention to the cultural and artistic production of queers themselves. She examines the "transgender gaze," as rendered in small art-house films like "By Hook or By Crook," as well as figurations of ambiguous embodiment in the art of Del LaGrace Volcano, Jenny Saville, Eva Hesse, Shirin Neshat, and others. She then exposes the influence of lesbian drag king cultures upon hetero-male comic films, such as "Austin Powers" and "The Full Monty," and, finally, points to dyke subcultures as one site forthe development of queer counterpublics and queer temporalities.

Considering the sudden visibility of the transgender body in the early twenty-first century against the backdrop of changing conceptions of space and time, In a Queer Time and Place is the first full-length study of transgender representations in art, fiction, film, video, and music. This pioneering book offers both a jumping off point for future analysis of transgenderism and an important new way to understand cultural constructions of time and place.