Color of Desire

Christopher Ewing

Description

The Color of Desire tells the story of how, in the aftermath of gay liberation, race played a crucial role in shaping the trajectory of queer, German politics. Focusing on the Federal Republic of Germany, Christopher Ewing charts both the entrenchment of racisms within white, queer scenes and the formation of new, antiracist movements that contested overlapping marginalizations. Far from being discrete political trajectories, racist and antiracist politics were closely connected, as activists worked across groups to develop their visions for queer politics. Ewing describes not only how AIDS workers, gay tourists, white lesbians, queer immigrants, and Black feminists were connected in unexpected ways but also how they developed contradictory concerns that comprised the full landscape of queer politics. Out of these connections, which often exceeded the bounds of the Federal Republic, arose new forms of queer fascism as well as their multiple, antiracist contestations. Both unsettled the appeals to national belonging, or "homonationalism," on which many white queer activists based their claims. Thus, the story of the making of homonationalism is also the story of its unmaking.The Color of Desire explains how the importance of racism to queer politics cannot-and should not-be understood without also attending to antiracism. Actors worked across different groups, making it difficult to chart separable political trajectories. At the same time, antiracist activists also used the fractures and openings in groups that were heavily invested in the logics of whiteness to formulate new, antiracist organizations and, albeit in constrained ways, shifted queer politics more generally.

Sujets

• LGBTQ+ Studies
• Histoire
• History of Europe
• Germany

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2024
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501773389
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 22 Mo

Extrait

THE COLOR OF DESIRE

THE COLOR OF DESIRE

T HE QUE E R POL I T I CS OF RACE I N T HE F E DE RAL RE PUBL I C OF GE RMANY AFT E R 1970

C h r i s to p h e r E w i n g

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2023 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2023 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ewing, Christopher, 1989– author. Title: The color of desire : the queer politics of race in the Federal Republic of Germany after 1970 / Christopher Ewing. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023030702 (print) | LCCN 2023030703 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501773365 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501773372 (epub) | ISBN 9781501773389 (pdf ) Subjects: LCSH: Sexual minorities—Germany (West)—Social conditions. | Sexual minorities— Germany—Social conditions. | Sexual minorities, Black—Germany (West)—Social conditions. | Sexual minorities, Black—Germany—Social conditions. | Gay liberation movement—Germany (West) | Gay liberation movement—Germany. | Germany (West)—Race relations—Political aspects. | Germany—Race relations—Political aspects. Classification: LCC HQ73.3.G3 E95 2023 (print) | LCC HQ73.3.G3 (ebook) | DDC 306.760943— dc23/eng/20230801 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023030702 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc. gov/2023030703

For my parents, Ruanne and J.C. And for Javi

Co nte nts

Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations xiii

 Introduction: New Year’s Eve, 1970 Pa r t I : A n I nt e r n at i o n a l M ove m e nt 1. Sex Tourism in the 1970s and the End of Permissive Islam: Disappointed in Casablanca 2. The European Exception: International Solidarity between Gay Liberation and the Iranian Revolution 3. Antiracism and the AIDS Crisis, or Homonationalism’s Rocky Start Pa r t I I : A c t i v i s m a n d t h e Stat e 4. Making Homophobic Migrants out of Neo-Nazis: Gay Rights after Unification 5. Antiracist Gains and the Emergence of Queer Fascism in the Twenty-First Century: Homophobia’s Side Effects  Epilogue: What Happened to Homonationalism?

Notes 209 Bibliography 271 Index 305

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A c k n o w l e d g m e nt s

“Since I’ve met you and moved to Sydney, I haven’t listened to one ABBA song. That’s because now my life is as good as an ABBA song,” Muriel Heslop tells her best friend, Rhonda Epinstalk, in the 1994 classicMuriel’s Wedding. For Toni Collette’s char- acter, leaving her suburban life in Porpoise Spit was not only impos- sible, but unimaginable without the support of Rachel Griffiths’s exuberant Rhonda. This book, deeply personal in so many ways, is simi- larly unimaginable without the many people who ultimately created it. For reasons that will forever be unclear to me, Dagmar Herzog decided to take me on as a student fresh out of my undergraduate stud- ies. Her ability to hold seemingly unrelated processes in mind and her insistence on letting the contradictions stand taught me how to explain change over time—an art that I am still trying to perfect. The char- ity with which Dagmar approaches her historical subjects is surpassed only by her commitment to her students. Her work in both continues to serve as an inspiration. As I moved through the many steps of this project, I was fortu- nate enough to have Benjamin Hett and Julia Sneeringer on my team. A staunch supporter of queer history writing, Ben taught me to posi- tion my work for diverse and sometimes antipathetic audiences while passing on a sincere love for European history of all methodological stripes. Julia’s measured analyses turned me into a passionate defender of the importance of culture, and her unwavering care in multiple senses of the word helped me to develop an authorial voice with which to defend those commitments. Judith Surkis and David Troyansky pushed me out of my German state of mind, and in that regard, I also thank Laura Belmonte, Khalil Muhammad, Satadru Sen, David Sorkin, and Megan Vaughan. I also thank Christoph Kimmich, Till van Rah- den, and Richard Wetzell for bringing me back to the Federal Republic. Jennifer Evans, a champion of younger scholars who has supported this

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