Queer World Making

Contemporary Middle Eastern Diasporic Art

Andrew Gayed an abundantly illustrated look at ho W queerness is P erformed W ithin artisti

Premodern archives from the Middle East show rich and diverse homoerotic worlds that were disrupted by the colonial imposition of Western models of sexuality. Andrew Gayed traces how contemporary Arab and Middle Eastern diasporic artists have remembered and reinvented these historical ways of being in their work in order to imagine a different present. Building on global art histories and transnational queer theory, Queer World Making illuminates contemporary understandings of queer sexuality in the Middle Eastern diaspora. The author focuses on the visual works of artists who create political art about queer identity, including Jamil Hellu, Ebrin Bagheri, 2Fik, Laurence Rasti, Nilbar Güres, and Alireza Shojaian.

Through engaging with these artists, Gayed is seeking to articulate a Western and non-Western modernity that works beyond the dichotomy of sexual oppression, stereotypically associated with the Middle East, versus sexual acceptance, attributed to North American norms. Instead, Gayed traces how diasporic subjects create coming-out narratives and identities that provide alternatives to inscribed Western models. Queer World Making reframes Arab homosexualities in terms of desire and alternative gender norms rather than through Western notions of visibility and coming out, narratives that are not conducive to understanding how queer Arabs living in the West experience their sexuality.

“This remarkably interdisciplinary work on queer art from Middle Eastern and North African diasporas departs from auto-theory to make a crucial contribution to transnational queer studies. Through his own strategy of ‘queering locally’ and Piotr Piotrowski’s concept of ‘horizontal art histories,’ Gayed articulates very practical strategies for decolonizing the discipline of art history.”

—Jarrod Hayes, author of Queer Roots for the Diaspora: Ghosts in the Family Tree february

Andrew Gayed is assistant professor of art history and visual culture at the Ontario College of Art and Design University (ocadu ).

328 pp., 47 color illus., 7.25 × 9 in.

$35.00s / £26.99 Pb / 9780295752297

$35.00s / £26.99 eb / 9780295752303

Art History / Middle East Studies / Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies critical ethnic studies and visual culture

A McLellan Book august

104 pp., 5.25 × 8 in.

$19.95 / £14.99 Pb / 9780295752075

$19.95 / £14.99 eb / 9780295752082 Asian