Reading these pieces together really got me thinking about how queerness isn’t just about identity—it’s about shaking up the way we think about history, space, and belonging. Manalansan’s piece on undocumented queer immigrants living in messy, overcrowded apartments really stood out. He makes this bold claim: that mess itself is an archive, a way of remembering and existing outside the neat, official categories that usually define history. Which I deeply resonate with as in when someone asks me what I miss most about North African or Arab culture I would say “the mess”, the all vibrant all consuming one. Instead of seeing clutter as a problem, he argues that it tells a story of survival. These apartments—filled with plastic bags, boxes, things stuffed into corners that aren’t just chaotic; they’re proof of life, of movement, of making a home in a world that doesn’t want to recognize you.
That idea of queering the archive and challenging what’s considered worth preserving also comes up in Dragojlovic and Quinan’s piece. They talk about how memory is structured in a way that erases certain people, especially those who don’t fit into dominant narratives of history. Instead of just trying to “add” queer and marginalized stories back into existing archives, they ask: What if we rethink memory itself? What if forgetting, silence, and even fiction become part of how we understand the past? I found their discussion of Saidiya Hartman’s idea like writing history with and against the archive especially powerful. It’s a reminder that not every story can be recovered, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe the gaps, the things we can’t know, are just as important as what’s documented.
Then there’s Mikdashi and Puar, who take this discussion global. They push back against how Western queer theory often dominates the conversation, making everything fit into an American framework. They show how queerness, war, and colonialism are deeply connected, especially when you look at places like Palestine, where queer lives are shaped by occupation and military control. What really stuck with me was their question: Is queer theory itself built on an “uninterrogated nationalism”? In other words, does it assume a certain kind of progress and visibility that only makes sense in Western contexts? That’s a hard but necessary question, especially when we think about how LGBTQ+ rights are sometimes used to justify imperialism.
All three of these pieces challenge the idea that queerness has to be neat, visible, and legible. Instead, they show how disorder whether it’s a cramped apartment, a forgotten history, or a life lived outside the state can be a powerful way of resisting. It made me wonder:
How can queering memory help us rethink how we talk about immigration and displacement today? Instead of just fighting for inclusion, how can mess, erasure, and silence be part of the way we understand and resist state violence?
While I found this week’s readings and the terminologies employed in them quite difficult to understand at first, they made me reflect on the organized order of archives, museums, testimonies, stories, and other “containers” or modes of expression of memories we’ve discussed throughout the semester so far. We’ve discussed at length the need to create opportunities for memory to be shared through non-linear, non-systematic avenues, and the readings from Manalasan, Dragojivolic & Quinan, and Paur & Mikadashi raise additional considerations about why certain narratives and representations remain silenced, partial, and centered around dominant heteronormative, nationalistic, and Western ideals.
Puar and Mikadashi write about sexuality and queerness as “infinitely imbricated in biopolitical forms of control” (217), offering the racial reproductive technologies of the Israeli state and the gendering of heteronormative men as available for killing “(without mourning)” in Palestine as examples. I’m currently working on a final research project on sex education and have come across extensive literature that cites national strength and eugenics as the key incentives behind the advocacy of sex education that promotes the traditional, gender normative, nuclear family. Throughout my research, I’ve found how queer and other marginalized groups and identities are often rendered invisible in both sex education itself and the media representations of it, leaving the burden on these communities themselves to navigate learning about sex, relationships, health, and their bodies on their own. Just as we see in the news every day, alternative ways of being and loving, while always existent, continue to be controlled, rejected, silenced, and restricted through state and institutionalized violence. Within this context and drawing parallels to the reading, sex education serves as a weapon of biopolitical control that actively threatens and endangers queer and other marginalized folks.
In an interview I conducted recently, the person I interviewed repeated multiple times that “the thing about queerness is that it lives in secrecy.” This quote made me think about Malansan’s article on The Stuff of Archives and the memories and experiences represented by the disorganized “mess/chaos” of the items. It made me think about the inherent secrecy of the memories and desires that are held within these objects, and how nobody but the residents of the apartment themselves know what they are. Partly because their items are not displayed and publicized in a typical archive, partly because objects hold meaning that can’t always be verbalized, and partly because inviting others to interact with their objects would enhance the precarity of their living arrangement and undocumented status. This has me questioning what secrecy truly is. In this case, the term feels more synonymous with an institutional silencing rather than an autonomous decision to withhold a truth.
Questions:
What is the relationship between secrecy and silencing?
The authors imply that anything existing outside of normative binaries (beyond sexual identity) should/could be considered queer. Is this a widely accepted perspective? What do LGTBQI+ and queer advocacy groups think about it?
Before I reflect on the readings, I feel it is important for me to write about my experience with queer existence . One of the first things I did after coming to Canada was learning the different components of the acronym 2SLGBTQIA+. I do not feel embarrassed admitting this because prior to this I was never exposed to these terminologies. I looked up every letter in the acronym and tried to learn and retain the nuances. I feel this is important, especially as a Bangladeshi Muslim woman being exposed to these new truths and concepts in Canada. Before I was somewhat aware of these terminologies but not well-versed. I come from a family that is completely (and maybe willingly?) oblivious to the existence of the queer community. This is shaped by their experiences having lived in a conservative, Muslim-dominated, patriarchal society. I have a gay friend whom my mom loves and in more instances than one she has said how happy she would be if I dated him. Everytime I point out that he is gay, my mother fully rejects it, as though this is not real. As though, I am ‘crazy’ to call him gay because these things only manifest in White environments and not in our hometown.
This reality is why this week’s reading from Brown & Davidmann (2016) struck a chord. In the article, the author talks about the “amnesia archive,” of family photographs; which is its tendency to erase uncomfortable pasts. The article discusses a wedding portrait involving the author’s aunt and uncle, Ken and says that there is nothing more heteronormative than a wedding photograph. Seeing it filled me with a familiar uncomfortable feeling because it reminded me of families from my culture who marry off their gay/lesbian/queer children with cis-gender heterosexual partners. These repressing acts are driven by two emotions. The first is insecurity to shroud their children’s sexual identities due to the stigma and shame attached with it in cultures like mine. Second, is the lack of understanding to queer and homosexual concepts leading them to perceive these tendencies as ‘something that will pass’.
This week’s readings were very new for me as I have previously never engaged with such literature. I found it interesting when Brown & Davidmann (2016) spoke about the inclusion of trans* people in family albums to disrupt normative narratives and create new forms of belonging and kinship. I was also fascinated by Dragojlovic and Quinan’s (2023) phrase “haunted speakability” and how it fails to represent harm and abuse, by producing archives about queer intimacies in an idealized and romanticized fashion. It was interesting to learn how this contributes to the lack of visibility and narratives around critical issues the queer community might experience such as queer domestic abuse.
I resonate with some key points from the Mikdashi & Puar (2016) article. Especially, when the authors discuss how queer theory remains predominantly shaped by US-based archives, methods, and geopolitical contexts and even when applied to non-Western countries, the US is still used as a reference point. This exact principle is what is currently driving the decolonization movement in global health. I resonated with the authors whether they discussed how the precarity of queer life is not exceptional in socio political spaces, rife with conflict and genocide, such as in the Middle East. I acknowledge the need to challenge mainstream queer theory’s focus on activism, identity, and sexualized bodies. I also see the need for queer studies to expand its focus on war and the disabilities it produces; given the relevance of such contexts in our world today. But I am still not sure why the authors are specifically talking about war-induced debilitation and injuries for queer theory. This is the confusion I would like to explore more in class.
How can queer studies contribute to understanding war-induced disabilities?
What lens could queer theory offer to understand stunting in Palestinian children?
The readings challenge dominant narratives around queer theory, memory, and archives, reminding me that memory is not just about what is preserved in museums or archives, it is also about what is forgotten, what is deliberately erased, and what refuses to fit into neat categories.
In “Queering Memory,” Dragojlovic and Quinan explore how memory, queerness, and archives intersect, questioning how histories are preserved, whose stories are told, and what is erased or silenced. They emphasize that queering memory is not just about adding LGBTQ+ stories to history but about fundamentally rethinking how we remember, document, and engage with the past. Traditional archives often erase the lives of marginalized people, and even when queer history is recovered, it is often framed to fit dominant narratives. This piece made me realize the importance of embracing imperfect and imaginative ways of remembering that resist existing power structures, creating space for new ways of knowing rather than upholding polished, complete historical narratives.
Mikdashi and Puar’s work deepened my understanding of how queer rights intersect with war and nationalism. While LGBTQ+ rights are often seen as markers of progress, they can also be used to justify violence, warfare, and nationalist agendas. This concept, known as homonationalism, refers to the way Western countries promote themselves as champions of queer rights while portraying non-Western, especially Muslim-majority, nations as oppressive—using this contrast to justify war, military intervention, or restrictive immigration policies. But not all queer struggles center on legal rights or visibility. For those in war zones, occupied territories, or living as refugees, queerness is often about survival rather than state recognition. The authors highlight how queer rights are not granted equally—some lives are protected within national narratives, while others remain expendable. This reading challenged me to think beyond my comfort zone and consider queer survival, resistance, and memory in the context of war, migration, and occupation.
Manalansan IV brings these ideas into everyday life by examining the experiences of undocumented queer immigrants, the Queer Six. He challenges the idea that archives must be structured and orderly, instead presenting their living archives, shaped by mess, instability, and survival. In a world where legality is determined by documents, the “undocumented” exist in a state of uncertainty. Their possessions, their ways of navigating life, even the spaces they share—all hold stories, even if they will never be recorded in official history books. Manalansan also highlights that visibility is not always safe or desirable, particularly for undocumented queer people. This shifted my perspective, making me realize that invisibility can be a form of protection and survival, challenging the common narrative that queerness is always about legal recognition, visibility, and inclusion.
Question:
How do we acknowledge and honor queer histories that exist outside of traditional archives?
“A queer approach to memory has a potential to contest traditional lines of futurity and constructs an archive that is neither fixed nor teleological, allowing for a more extended processing of erasure, silencing, and trauma” (Quinan, 2021)
Dragcojlovic’s piece made me reflect on how queering, as a method, not only shapes memorialization by centering queer narratives but also challenges power structures and dominant historical accounts. This made me think about the AIDS epidemic, which the article briefly mentions. What have we chosen to remember and forget about the AIDS epidemic, and how are we seeking to memorialize/historicize this portion of history through archival work? When thinking about AIDS, there’s the hypervisibility of the ‘stigmatized body’ which in turn has shaped our discourses around HIV/AIDS and who we associate is ‘susceptible to getting HIV/AIDS today. Not to mention the over-stigmatization and criminalizing policies surrounding the virus. In this case, queer archiving, particularly around AIDS, resists this erasure by centering lived experiences, unofficial materials provided by friends and chosen family and alternative ways of remembering.
Brown and Davidman’s queering the family album highlights how queering as a method, should center and include the lived experiences of the queer people. In thinking about the role of photographs in helping us memorialize things of the ‘past,’ this article elucidates the ways in which photographs can also be a site of trauma for trans people given the heteronormative nature of photographs (not being able to show your transness). For Whittle, the family album was quite an affirming and explorative process, where he was able to reclaim parts of him that were previously invisibilized.
On another note, Puar et al.’s piece made me think more deeply about the need to expand queerness beyond sexuality and gender, as well as the importance of American studies to consider global histories of war, colonization, and imperialism. They mention how people who have endured war-related violence, such as amputations, inadequate medical care, and exposure to toxic chemicals, may not fit into understandings or theorizations about queerness, as their bodies may not necessarily challenge the ‘gender binary’ but other forms of binary thinking. This further shows how disability within queer analysis is usually framed as an intersectional identity, such as being queer and disabled. Thus, the authors suggest we see disability as a “biopolitical vector:” seeing disability, especially in the context of war and imperialism, not just in terms of people’s queerness but how they’re controlled by political powers. Within binary thinking about disabled bodies as either abnormal and queer bodies as transgressive, disabled bodies within the context of war and imperialism do not fit into either of these categories, further challenging their positionality in relation to queerness and disability studies. As Puar et. al states: Do we want to claim cripples as queer bodies, especially when those bodies neither present a challenge to the normative nor signal a transgressive nonnormativity but undo this very binary opposition through their endemic presence?
How can we expand our understanding of queerness to include bodies that have endured trauma and violence, and what might this reveal about the relationship between identity, power, and the body?
“What happens when, instead of orderly catalogs, makeshift arrangements teetering on the brink of anarchy become the ‘disorder’ of things?” — Martin Manalansan IV
As I read, I kept feeling an unease, not because of what was in these articles, but because of what they forced me to confront. I had always assumed, even after all the class discussions, that history, even in its silences, could eventually be recovered. That the right archive, the right framework, the right storyteller could fill in the gaps. But what if some things are not just forgotten, but are made to be unremembered? What if erasure is not simply an absence but a force, something actively maintained?.
Manalansan’s work made me rethink what an archive could be. The image of six undocumented queer immigrants in a cramped Jackson Heights apartment, living in a mess of mismatched dishes, jobs, and legal invisibility, felt familiar in ways I didn’t expect. I had thought of archives as places of permanence, but here, mess itself was the archive. Not in the official sense, not as something meant to be preserved but as something that resists documentation entirely. “The ‘undocumented’ immigrant is not someone who does not have documents but rather is someone whose papers are in disarray or not in proper, ‘official’ state-sanctioned order.” That idea stuck with me. The state does not simply erase people. It demands that they erase themselves, that they exist in ways that do not disrupt its order. To be undocumented is not to lack proof of existence but to exist in a way that refuses to be categorized.
Then I read Puar and Mikdashi, and my discomfort sharpened. They ask whether visibility is always liberation, whether being recognized by the archive is always the goal. And I realized I had never questioned that before. I had assumed the problem was exclusion, that the solution was inclusion. But what if to be included is to be contained? What if the act of being archived, of being made legible is itself a form of control?
Dragojlovic and Quinan took this even further, making me question the very structure of time. “Queering memory allows for an analysis of the ways in which memory, gender, and sexuality are intertwined and co-constituted.” Their argument that memory does not have to conform to the logic of archives, that it can be fluid, constantly rewritten, felt deeply personal. Their work made me rethink how memory functions for those of us who don’t have fixed origins, for those of us who live between places, between identities, between realities that refuse coherence. What if queerness is not just about resisting norms of gender and sexuality but about resisting the very way time is structured and also about rejecting the demand to fit into the logic of progress?
I keep returning to these questions:
1. If the archive constructs the boundaries of what can be known, then is knowledge itself always an act of containment? Can there be ways of knowing that do not require extraction, classification, or permanence?
2. If queerness disrupts not just identity but also the very ways we structure time, space, and history, then can memory exist outside of human experience? Could an archive be built not in records or testimonies but in the rhythms of the body, in the ephemeral, in the nonhuman? What would it mean to think of memory beyond the limits of language?
Our readings this week were really illuminating for me in thinking about how intersectional queer theory and methodology can revolutionize our understandings of memory and politics. In particular, I was drawn to the arguments presented throughout the Dragojlovic & Quinan and Mikdashi & Puar readings about “homocolonial” and “homonationalist” framings that have dominated queer theory especially because it has been developed primarily from American perspectives. Scholars like Mikdashi & Puar are thus paving the way for developing a queer theory that does not exclude racialized LGBTQIA+ identities around the globe. These intersectional perspectives feel especially important given what Mikdashi & Puar label “pinkwashing” (p.217) by oppressive regimes. This is a term that I was previously made familiar with in discussions about Gaza and how Israel flaunts its ‘progressiveness’ in supporting LGBTQIA+ rights, despite inflicting violence on Palestinian LGBTQIA+ people on a daily basis. I read a statement by Queers in Palestine in their Liberatory Demand from Queers in Palestine (https://queersinpalestine.noblogs.org/post/2023/11/08/87/) that said: “No queer liberation can be achieved with settler colonization, and no queer solidarity can be fostered if it stands blind to the racialized, capitalist, fascist, and imperialist structures that dominate us”, which I find is a powerful call to move beyond white, colonial queer theory and framing. I was particularly interested in how Mikdashi & Puar proposed expanding the definition of “queer bodies” (p.220) beyond sexuality to include bodies that have been wounded by war. I have personally never heard or thought of the word queer in this way and am intrigued by the possibility of re-thinking and expanding definitions such as this. I wonder how doing so may or may not positively impact different communities who identify as queer, and I would be interested in exploring other perspectives on this.
To tie my thoughts together, I am reflecting on the implications that these perspectives on queer theory may have for our discussions on collective memory. I found the Brown & Davidmann reading to be quite a beautiful testament of how representations of LGBTQIA+ memory have been erased, but also can be a source of hope and a symbol of love, care and community when kept alive. I was drawn to their proposal that photographs of trans people threaten scientific racism and colonial power because they are loaded with political meaning through documenting the existence of “nonnormative” (p.193) bodies and relationships despite the oppression that they have been subjected to. In this context, remembering is a form of resistance. Accordingly, intersectional approaches feel especially necessary to promote the possibility of remembering as a form of resistance for the people whose lives are affected by colonial, hetero- and cis-normative structures in multiple overlapping ways.
Q: What could a greater emphasis on intersectionality mean for the possibility of transitional justice for all marginalized communities?
This week’s assigned readings were analyzed in a variety of contexts using Queer Theory as a central theme surrounding social factors and the international system. The article that stood out to me the most was Dragojlovic, A., & Quinan, C.’s (2023) article on the formation of memory construction. This is because in my conception, the topic of gender progresses gradually as society develops; however, this article is very different from my perspective.
Specifically, in my experience of receiving education in China, for example, the topic of social identity, including LGBTQ+ is rarely mentioned, and the topic of homosexuality in particular is missing. This is because homosexuality would not have been addressed in education in China’s domestic cultural context a decade or so ago, and if possible, it was used as counter-teaching material to shape students’ perceptions of gender. For instance, many years ago, I read in the news that a textbook in a certain region of China defined homosexuality as a mental illness rather than a personal choice. Even though I do not know the authenticity of the news article, I was still surprised by the content of the textbook because it was a mistake that happened in the context of today’s society. Building on this, Manalansan et al. (2014) suggest that identification reinforces the marginalization of the LGBTQ community, and the immigrant community is used as an example in that article, who despite their struggle to survive, the group under the collective exhibits challenges to the dominant culture of the society.
Dragojlovic, A., & Quinan, C.’s (2023) also mentioned a concept that impressed me, namely “haunted speakability”. The historical evolution of the level of homosexuality identified in Chinese society has gone through several cognitive changes. In the late 20th century, homosexuality was the least recognized period because that was the social context that viewed homosexuality as not compatible with social norms. However, despite the fact that in the early 21st century, the perception of homosexuality has changed, which is reflected in the gradual appearance of homosexuality in movies, even though some of the movies were banned. Until now, people’s acceptance of homosexuality has greatly increased, but the topic of homosexuality is still discussed in society due to the long-established ideology of the previous generation of the population. While mainstream television and media still avoid discussing the topic, there are still many groups that support it in a subtle way.
Can there be a uniform standard for deciding what memories should be remembered?
When the genocide in Gaza started, I saw many people claiming that the U.S. and Israel were bombing Palestine to bring democracy and “free” queer Palestinians. But is carpet bombing really liberation? This reading really resonated with me because it critically examines how the U.S. dominates queer discourse, acting as if queerness only exists in the West, while also exposing pinkwashing—the use of LGBTQ+ rights to justify state violence ( Puar & Mikdashi, 2016). It’s heartbreaking to see pinkwashing in action, just like when corporations slap rainbow flags on their logos for Pride Month and erase them the moment July 1st arrives, reducing queer liberation to a capitalist marketing strategy (Manalansan, 2014). On a personal level, growing up as a Muslim Pakistani, queerness was never openly discussed in my household—not out of hatred, but because it was simply not a topic of conversation. The only exception was trans people, who were spoken about in a more positive light, likely because trans visibility has a long history in South Asia, where hijras have been recognized for centuries.
It wasn’t until high school, when I attended public school, that I was exposed to queer people and made LGBTQ+ friends. Fast forward to September 2024—I was in Calgary, working downtown right across from the Harry Hays federal building when the 1 Million March for Children protest began. I was honestly shocked by how many Muslims were protesting against LGBTQ+ rights, standing side by side with far-right white conservatives—people who, in any other context, would turn against them in a second. Meanwhile, LGBTQ+ activists stood on the opposite side. Months later, I saw so many queer and Two-Spirit people protesting for Palestine, marching alongside some of the very same Muslims who had protested against them. It was a moment that truly shook me. Liberation and justice can’t be a pick-and-choose situation—it has to be for all marginalized communities, including LGBTQ+ people. Seeing this solidarity pushed me to become more vocal about these issues, even though it’s been challenging, especially with my roommates. But as this reading emphasizes, true justice requires confronting contradictions, resisting the ways states and corporations exploit queerness for their own agendas, and committing to intersectional solidarity (Puar & Mikdashi, 2016; Manalansan, 2014).
500~ words are not enough for me to talk about all the reflections and feelings and thoughts I had while doing this week’s readings. I’ll try to be concise, and straight (ha!) to the point to a certain extent, but some of these thoughts are so scattered that me trying to bring them down to a concise statement would be futile.
I remember “hearing” about Queering the Map. I put hearing in quotation marks because it was mostly through the grapevines of queer Tumblr and Twitter that I knew about this map. I remember when not every country had a pin. The internet, and in particular those circles in which I tend to participate sometimes make me forget/remember that not everyone is part of the LGBTQ+ but this map I think was the first time I saw the many different experiences of people around the world. The Watson et al. article talks about how the map makes visible those things that are not normally seen. And while the article puts it in terms of relatability and how the participants were able to find experiences, they were able to relate to, another way it visibilizes queer experiences is by highlighting those experiences that do not fit within a white western archetype of what being queer means. There are posts of people in Gaza, of people in areas of the world that we do not tend to associate with “queerness” and yet, it demonstrates that queer bodies and queer experiences transcend beyond the established norm.
I was reminded of a song that goes “Who’s gonna tell us the stories, that our textbooks don’t? Tales of love that stay blurry, cause our courses won’t. Ignore the way they’re designed to erase the past. To keep good intentions secret. To force a mask.” (History Hates Lovers by Oublaire) Is it slightly cheesy? Yes, maybe. But I think it captures some of the questions that the readings raise. An archive is supposed to be something that you can consult in order to learn about something, but queer history (and queer memory) is often times not recorded in conventional ways. It is written in letters addressed to “My beloved”. It is written in non-specific pronouns in songs. It is written in anonymous asks on Tumblr.
Watson et al. talk about “place-based memorialising” (p. 101). And the moment I read that I was reminded about how there have been many places (physical places) that are important or relevant in some way to the LGBTQ+ community that have been completely demolished or renovated or they simply ceased to exist. One of those are the countless lesbian bars that have disappeared in the US and Canada (why the only thing that remains are gay bars and their singular lesbian night is a discussion for another time). Back in the 80’s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars in the US. And according to an article on Autostraddle, that number was 24 in 2021. But, as the same article points out, “But sometimes endangerment encourages preservation”. Now there are supposedly 37 lesbian bars. Because if we want to preserve the queer archives, in whichever form the come, it is up to us to keep that memory going. And I think in general, the LGBTQ+ community has very imaginative ways of keeping the memory alive, of continuing the queer archive. This is one of the few times that I feel somewhat positive about the future. To me, the best joy is queer joy is important. And this gives me queer joy.
Question:
What do future queer archives look like? What is their role in the creation of a queer future?
This week I found the idea of not knowing in the Dragojlovic and Quinan reading especially poignant. Dragojlovic and Quinan quote from Hartman- “As a writer committed to telling stories, I have endeavored to represent the lives and the nameless and the forgotten, to reckon with loss, and to respect the limits of what cannot be known” (4), and propose that queering memory can be a way to build alternative narratives that address “which memories are privileged and which memories are hidden or silenced” (also 4). Another quote from Hartman recommends “writing about what cannot be verified” and to “imagine the unknowable past” (4).
In all the conversations we’ve had about imagining alternatives (à la Krystalli, for example), I guess I had largely conceptualised imagination as something that looks forward, glancing ahead to the future to see what can be done differently. I don’t know that it had occurred to me to imagine looking back into memory– so it seems that the authors have succeeded in presenting queering archives as something that can be a “practice of innovative and generative history making” that changes how we view time and memory” (4). But it feels surprising to me now that the way I think of imagination is so uni-directional, and I wonder what it means to think of imagination stretching in all directions.
We’ve talked a bunch this term about concerns that Dragojlovic and Quinan have with regards to certain memories being privileged, and certain memories being hidden and silenced. What is written out of memory? To borrow and rephrase the classic year one university question, how do we know what we DON’T know? How can I come to know what (and who) has (/have) been written out of history? What do we do if we have forgotten things we never remembered in the first place?
It makes sense that imagination would fill a gap here. If we are trying to come to know something that is beyond the “limits of what can be known” then the only option might be to imagine. Dragojlovic and Quinan reference the politics of absence, and while this particular article talks mostly about sexuality, queerness, and race, it’s easy to see how erasure extends to other marginalized communities too.
I went to see a play recently about women in the fur trade, which I did not have high hopes for because I feel weird when I go to local theatre. It was set around the time of the Red River Rebellion, and was about conversations between an Indigenous woman, a Métis woman, and a white settler woman talking about their place in history. I’m butchering this summary but there was this incredibly poignant ending where the women have this meta moment where they address that we (the audience) are seeing them, and in seeing them, are acknowledging how many women– Indigenous women in particular– experience erasure. There is this moment where one of the women explicitly says “I don’t want to be forgotten”, and I’m not even doing it justice but it was just so moving.
The focal point of the ending (don’t read if you don’t want it spoiled) is a Louis Riel quote, “My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back”. I just learned when I googled the author of the play for this reflection, Frances Koncan, that they are actually a prof at UBC. I think that this play is a really beautiful example of what Dragojlovic and Quinan are talking about when they talk about using imagination to reach beyond the limits of what can be known to bring people into memory who have been systematically erased, whether that is through writing about Indigenous and Métis women in a play, or queering archives. Imagination is political. Imagination is necessary.
Questions:
What is our responsibility when we write about what cannot be known?
Who gets to imagine?
Why is it so hard to remember complexity?
While reading/thinking through the texts of this week, I am grounded in Anjali Arondekar’s theory of abundance in Abundance: Sexuality’s History. Arondekar challenges prevailing archival methodologies that emphasize loss, erasure, and lack in the history of sexuality, calling instead for an epistemic shift that recognizes the excess of queer archives. Rather than treating archives—especially those outside the Eurocentric frame—as sites of retrieval or recovery, Arondekar proposes an alternative reading strategy that recognizes how archives are always already abundant, discursively reassembled through each reading.
Manalansan’s Mess, Migration, and Queer Lives (2014) exemplifies this shift by rethinking the archive through the material and affective disorder of undocumented queer immigrants in Jackson Heights, NYC. He frames “mess” as a critical archival form, rejecting normative archival order in favor of the ephemeral, precarious, and lived realities of queer migrants. His work aligns with Arondekar’s argument that queer histories should not be reduced to recovery projects but recognized as always abundant and generative.
Similarly, Dragojlovic and Quinan (2023) critique visibility politics, cautioning against the assumption that making queer histories visible within dominant frameworks equates to liberation. Their work emphasizes queering memory as an act of unsettling historical narratives rather than conforming to progress-oriented Western historiography. This reinforces Arondekar’s vision of history as an expansive, discursive field rather than a fixed repository of truths.
What new insights emerge when we prioritize abundance over absence, and how might this reframe the ways we theorize queer histories beyond colonial knowledge structures?
I read an article this week on neuroscience. The article offers evidence that “in almost all situations we encounter in our daily lives, we are able to draw on our schematic knowledge about what typically happens in the world to better perceive and mentally represent our ongoing experiences.” In other words, we create narrative scripts for ourselves and then as we encounter situations we assign them to one of our narrative scripts. These scripts impact what information we encode, or in other words, our memory.
On the one hand, obviously. On the other hand, reading this process some of the ideas we’re discussing this week. Sometimes you need to hear something a different way.
I’ve been working with the idea of stories that cannot accurately be told this week. Maybe something is known but is not understandable to the person who experienced it. Maybe something is not representable. Maybe something is not understandable to others. In “Queering memory: Toward re-membering otherwise,” the concept of haunted speakability is introduced, which requires “a careful attention to what might be concealed or is indeed unspeakable and beyond representability.”
I wonder if some stories are rendered unutterable because we don’t have scripts for them. We have no foundation to layer the story over and so we cannot understand it, either for ourselves or when it is shared with us. I know that some of the experiences I have struggled the most with are the ones that didn’t follow any script I could have possibly known or imagined. And what’s worse are the experiences I have been unable to turn into a narrative. I carry them with me like a burden while they rot and fester.
Another line that stayed with me from Dragojlovic and Quinan’s article was “to imagine the unknowable past.” Is this not the same as learning we cannot know the whole of anything? That there is not one truth looking back nor is there one singular experience of the hare-and-now? And thus, the future cannot be known either, so it must not be predetermined. What lightness that gives to existence, knowing that while I carry a whole life’s experiences, I only carry one life’s experiences! How much must we need each other if we can carry so little (and yet so much) with our own hands. How special it is when we can share experiences and yet where does that become imposing our experiences on others, especially when we do not know, cannot understand, do not share scripts with them?
I read a book in high school, Under the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner, which is a work of autobiographical fiction set during the Cambodian genocide. In an interview about the book, Ratner says, “I was a small child when the Khmer Rouge took over the country. Revisiting that period of our life, I found that I couldn’t trust myself completely to recall the exact details of the events and places and the chronology of our forced exodus from the city to the countryside, the journey from one place to the next during the span of those four years. I did initially try to write it as a memoir. But sorting through my own memories and what my mother was able to share with me, as well as the historical record, I kept asking myself again and again, What is the story I want to tell? What is my purpose for telling it?”
As far as I am concerned, the story Ratner tells is not less true for being fiction.
As for queering archives, what is the goal of archives anyway? Is it the recording of Fact? Truth? (which of course is always at least partially incomplete, narrow, and unknowable) Or is it simply a record that we exist, we existed, we are and were here? Is the sharing of these archives fundamentally the gifting of (potentially novel) scripts?
Baldassano, Christopher, Uri Hasson, and Kenneth A. Norman. 2018. “Representation of Real-World Event Schemas during Narrative Perception.” The Journal of Neuroscience 38 (45): 9689-9699.
Vaddey Ratner, “A Conversation with Vaddey Ratner on In the Shadow of the Banyan,” accessed March 3, 2024, https://vaddeyratner.com/banyan/q-a.
Reading Manalansan, Mikdashi and Puar, and Dragojlovic and Quinan this week made me think about the agency of visibility, archival erasure, and the ways in which queerness is documented, erased, or concealed. Manalansan’s concept of “mess” was particularly striking to me as it showed how cluttered, undocumented, and precarious queer immigrant existences serve as an alternative archive beyond the state-sanctioned and normative ways of recording history. The idea that not all queer histories can be neatly archived resonated with my thoughts on India’s own complex history with queer rights. While ancient texts and temple sculptures such as those at Khajuraho from as far back as the 18th Century depicted same-sex relationships, colonial rule criminalized homosexuality, and its legal and social consequences persist today. Even though homosexuality was decriminalized recently, I wonder how these changing socio-legal contexts changed the way Indian queer memories were recorded.
In many ways, Mikdashi and Puar’s work also complicated my understanding of visibility, particularly through their exploration of the concept of homonationalism. While India has had a long tradition of recognizing what it calls the ‘third gender’ even from ancient times, queer people in India often seek to move abroad to countries in the Global North that have the legal provisions to ensure their rights. It was also interesting to read how queer theory has been primarily developed within US academia, often overlooking geopolitical specificities outside of Euro-American contexts.
This also made me think about how queer memory is nonlinear and disruptive, as Dragojlovic and Quinan show. Traditional archives tend to impose order and linearity and reinforce heteronormative structures of remembering. This also reminded me of Lihaaf, an Urdu story I read over a decade ago as a literature student. The author, Ismat Chughtai, used the metaphor of a shroud (a blanket) and silence to convey the main character’s queerness in a story written in 1940. This spoke to the politics of erasure and survival – how invisibility, at times, is the only way to exist safely. Just as Chughtai was put on trial for obscenity for writing the story, queer histories today still face censorship, whether through state suppression or exclusion from mainstream archives.
Reading these pieces together really got me thinking about how queerness isn’t just about identity—it’s about shaking up the way we think about history, space, and belonging. Manalansan’s piece on undocumented queer immigrants living in messy, overcrowded apartments really stood out. He makes this bold claim: that mess itself is an archive, a way of remembering and existing outside the neat, official categories that usually define history. Which I deeply resonate with as in when someone asks me what I miss most about North African or Arab culture I would say “the mess”, the all vibrant all consuming one. Instead of seeing clutter as a problem, he argues that it tells a story of survival. These apartments—filled with plastic bags, boxes, things stuffed into corners that aren’t just chaotic; they’re proof of life, of movement, of making a home in a world that doesn’t want to recognize you.
That idea of queering the archive and challenging what’s considered worth preserving also comes up in Dragojlovic and Quinan’s piece. They talk about how memory is structured in a way that erases certain people, especially those who don’t fit into dominant narratives of history. Instead of just trying to “add” queer and marginalized stories back into existing archives, they ask: What if we rethink memory itself? What if forgetting, silence, and even fiction become part of how we understand the past? I found their discussion of Saidiya Hartman’s idea like writing history with and against the archive especially powerful. It’s a reminder that not every story can be recovered, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe the gaps, the things we can’t know, are just as important as what’s documented.
Then there’s Mikdashi and Puar, who take this discussion global. They push back against how Western queer theory often dominates the conversation, making everything fit into an American framework. They show how queerness, war, and colonialism are deeply connected, especially when you look at places like Palestine, where queer lives are shaped by occupation and military control. What really stuck with me was their question: Is queer theory itself built on an “uninterrogated nationalism”? In other words, does it assume a certain kind of progress and visibility that only makes sense in Western contexts? That’s a hard but necessary question, especially when we think about how LGBTQ+ rights are sometimes used to justify imperialism.
All three of these pieces challenge the idea that queerness has to be neat, visible, and legible. Instead, they show how disorder whether it’s a cramped apartment, a forgotten history, or a life lived outside the state can be a powerful way of resisting. It made me wonder:
How can queering memory help us rethink how we talk about immigration and displacement today? Instead of just fighting for inclusion, how can mess, erasure, and silence be part of the way we understand and resist state violence?
While I found this week’s readings and the terminologies employed in them quite difficult to understand at first, they made me reflect on the organized order of archives, museums, testimonies, stories, and other “containers” or modes of expression of memories we’ve discussed throughout the semester so far. We’ve discussed at length the need to create opportunities for memory to be shared through non-linear, non-systematic avenues, and the readings from Manalasan, Dragojivolic & Quinan, and Paur & Mikadashi raise additional considerations about why certain narratives and representations remain silenced, partial, and centered around dominant heteronormative, nationalistic, and Western ideals.
Puar and Mikadashi write about sexuality and queerness as “infinitely imbricated in biopolitical forms of control” (217), offering the racial reproductive technologies of the Israeli state and the gendering of heteronormative men as available for killing “(without mourning)” in Palestine as examples. I’m currently working on a final research project on sex education and have come across extensive literature that cites national strength and eugenics as the key incentives behind the advocacy of sex education that promotes the traditional, gender normative, nuclear family. Throughout my research, I’ve found how queer and other marginalized groups and identities are often rendered invisible in both sex education itself and the media representations of it, leaving the burden on these communities themselves to navigate learning about sex, relationships, health, and their bodies on their own. Just as we see in the news every day, alternative ways of being and loving, while always existent, continue to be controlled, rejected, silenced, and restricted through state and institutionalized violence. Within this context and drawing parallels to the reading, sex education serves as a weapon of biopolitical control that actively threatens and endangers queer and other marginalized folks.
In an interview I conducted recently, the person I interviewed repeated multiple times that “the thing about queerness is that it lives in secrecy.” This quote made me think about Malansan’s article on The Stuff of Archives and the memories and experiences represented by the disorganized “mess/chaos” of the items. It made me think about the inherent secrecy of the memories and desires that are held within these objects, and how nobody but the residents of the apartment themselves know what they are. Partly because their items are not displayed and publicized in a typical archive, partly because objects hold meaning that can’t always be verbalized, and partly because inviting others to interact with their objects would enhance the precarity of their living arrangement and undocumented status. This has me questioning what secrecy truly is. In this case, the term feels more synonymous with an institutional silencing rather than an autonomous decision to withhold a truth.
Questions:
What is the relationship between secrecy and silencing?
The authors imply that anything existing outside of normative binaries (beyond sexual identity) should/could be considered queer. Is this a widely accepted perspective? What do LGTBQI+ and queer advocacy groups think about it?
Before I reflect on the readings, I feel it is important for me to write about my experience with queer existence . One of the first things I did after coming to Canada was learning the different components of the acronym 2SLGBTQIA+. I do not feel embarrassed admitting this because prior to this I was never exposed to these terminologies. I looked up every letter in the acronym and tried to learn and retain the nuances. I feel this is important, especially as a Bangladeshi Muslim woman being exposed to these new truths and concepts in Canada. Before I was somewhat aware of these terminologies but not well-versed. I come from a family that is completely (and maybe willingly?) oblivious to the existence of the queer community. This is shaped by their experiences having lived in a conservative, Muslim-dominated, patriarchal society. I have a gay friend whom my mom loves and in more instances than one she has said how happy she would be if I dated him. Everytime I point out that he is gay, my mother fully rejects it, as though this is not real. As though, I am ‘crazy’ to call him gay because these things only manifest in White environments and not in our hometown.
This reality is why this week’s reading from Brown & Davidmann (2016) struck a chord. In the article, the author talks about the “amnesia archive,” of family photographs; which is its tendency to erase uncomfortable pasts. The article discusses a wedding portrait involving the author’s aunt and uncle, Ken and says that there is nothing more heteronormative than a wedding photograph. Seeing it filled me with a familiar uncomfortable feeling because it reminded me of families from my culture who marry off their gay/lesbian/queer children with cis-gender heterosexual partners. These repressing acts are driven by two emotions. The first is insecurity to shroud their children’s sexual identities due to the stigma and shame attached with it in cultures like mine. Second, is the lack of understanding to queer and homosexual concepts leading them to perceive these tendencies as ‘something that will pass’.
This week’s readings were very new for me as I have previously never engaged with such literature. I found it interesting when Brown & Davidmann (2016) spoke about the inclusion of trans* people in family albums to disrupt normative narratives and create new forms of belonging and kinship. I was also fascinated by Dragojlovic and Quinan’s (2023) phrase “haunted speakability” and how it fails to represent harm and abuse, by producing archives about queer intimacies in an idealized and romanticized fashion. It was interesting to learn how this contributes to the lack of visibility and narratives around critical issues the queer community might experience such as queer domestic abuse.
I resonate with some key points from the Mikdashi & Puar (2016) article. Especially, when the authors discuss how queer theory remains predominantly shaped by US-based archives, methods, and geopolitical contexts and even when applied to non-Western countries, the US is still used as a reference point. This exact principle is what is currently driving the decolonization movement in global health. I resonated with the authors whether they discussed how the precarity of queer life is not exceptional in socio political spaces, rife with conflict and genocide, such as in the Middle East. I acknowledge the need to challenge mainstream queer theory’s focus on activism, identity, and sexualized bodies. I also see the need for queer studies to expand its focus on war and the disabilities it produces; given the relevance of such contexts in our world today. But I am still not sure why the authors are specifically talking about war-induced debilitation and injuries for queer theory. This is the confusion I would like to explore more in class.
How can queer studies contribute to understanding war-induced disabilities?
What lens could queer theory offer to understand stunting in Palestinian children?
The readings challenge dominant narratives around queer theory, memory, and archives, reminding me that memory is not just about what is preserved in museums or archives, it is also about what is forgotten, what is deliberately erased, and what refuses to fit into neat categories.
In “Queering Memory,” Dragojlovic and Quinan explore how memory, queerness, and archives intersect, questioning how histories are preserved, whose stories are told, and what is erased or silenced. They emphasize that queering memory is not just about adding LGBTQ+ stories to history but about fundamentally rethinking how we remember, document, and engage with the past. Traditional archives often erase the lives of marginalized people, and even when queer history is recovered, it is often framed to fit dominant narratives. This piece made me realize the importance of embracing imperfect and imaginative ways of remembering that resist existing power structures, creating space for new ways of knowing rather than upholding polished, complete historical narratives.
Mikdashi and Puar’s work deepened my understanding of how queer rights intersect with war and nationalism. While LGBTQ+ rights are often seen as markers of progress, they can also be used to justify violence, warfare, and nationalist agendas. This concept, known as homonationalism, refers to the way Western countries promote themselves as champions of queer rights while portraying non-Western, especially Muslim-majority, nations as oppressive—using this contrast to justify war, military intervention, or restrictive immigration policies. But not all queer struggles center on legal rights or visibility. For those in war zones, occupied territories, or living as refugees, queerness is often about survival rather than state recognition. The authors highlight how queer rights are not granted equally—some lives are protected within national narratives, while others remain expendable. This reading challenged me to think beyond my comfort zone and consider queer survival, resistance, and memory in the context of war, migration, and occupation.
Manalansan IV brings these ideas into everyday life by examining the experiences of undocumented queer immigrants, the Queer Six. He challenges the idea that archives must be structured and orderly, instead presenting their living archives, shaped by mess, instability, and survival. In a world where legality is determined by documents, the “undocumented” exist in a state of uncertainty. Their possessions, their ways of navigating life, even the spaces they share—all hold stories, even if they will never be recorded in official history books. Manalansan also highlights that visibility is not always safe or desirable, particularly for undocumented queer people. This shifted my perspective, making me realize that invisibility can be a form of protection and survival, challenging the common narrative that queerness is always about legal recognition, visibility, and inclusion.
Question:
How do we acknowledge and honor queer histories that exist outside of traditional archives?
“A queer approach to memory has a potential to contest traditional lines of futurity and constructs an archive that is neither fixed nor teleological, allowing for a more extended processing of erasure, silencing, and trauma” (Quinan, 2021)
Dragcojlovic’s piece made me reflect on how queering, as a method, not only shapes memorialization by centering queer narratives but also challenges power structures and dominant historical accounts. This made me think about the AIDS epidemic, which the article briefly mentions. What have we chosen to remember and forget about the AIDS epidemic, and how are we seeking to memorialize/historicize this portion of history through archival work? When thinking about AIDS, there’s the hypervisibility of the ‘stigmatized body’ which in turn has shaped our discourses around HIV/AIDS and who we associate is ‘susceptible to getting HIV/AIDS today. Not to mention the over-stigmatization and criminalizing policies surrounding the virus. In this case, queer archiving, particularly around AIDS, resists this erasure by centering lived experiences, unofficial materials provided by friends and chosen family and alternative ways of remembering.
Brown and Davidman’s queering the family album highlights how queering as a method, should center and include the lived experiences of the queer people. In thinking about the role of photographs in helping us memorialize things of the ‘past,’ this article elucidates the ways in which photographs can also be a site of trauma for trans people given the heteronormative nature of photographs (not being able to show your transness). For Whittle, the family album was quite an affirming and explorative process, where he was able to reclaim parts of him that were previously invisibilized.
On another note, Puar et al.’s piece made me think more deeply about the need to expand queerness beyond sexuality and gender, as well as the importance of American studies to consider global histories of war, colonization, and imperialism. They mention how people who have endured war-related violence, such as amputations, inadequate medical care, and exposure to toxic chemicals, may not fit into understandings or theorizations about queerness, as their bodies may not necessarily challenge the ‘gender binary’ but other forms of binary thinking. This further shows how disability within queer analysis is usually framed as an intersectional identity, such as being queer and disabled. Thus, the authors suggest we see disability as a “biopolitical vector:” seeing disability, especially in the context of war and imperialism, not just in terms of people’s queerness but how they’re controlled by political powers. Within binary thinking about disabled bodies as either abnormal and queer bodies as transgressive, disabled bodies within the context of war and imperialism do not fit into either of these categories, further challenging their positionality in relation to queerness and disability studies. As Puar et. al states: Do we want to claim cripples as queer bodies, especially when those bodies neither present a challenge to the normative nor signal a transgressive nonnormativity but undo this very binary opposition through their endemic presence?
How can we expand our understanding of queerness to include bodies that have endured trauma and violence, and what might this reveal about the relationship between identity, power, and the body?
“What happens when, instead of orderly catalogs, makeshift arrangements teetering on the brink of anarchy become the ‘disorder’ of things?” — Martin Manalansan IV
As I read, I kept feeling an unease, not because of what was in these articles, but because of what they forced me to confront. I had always assumed, even after all the class discussions, that history, even in its silences, could eventually be recovered. That the right archive, the right framework, the right storyteller could fill in the gaps. But what if some things are not just forgotten, but are made to be unremembered? What if erasure is not simply an absence but a force, something actively maintained?.
Manalansan’s work made me rethink what an archive could be. The image of six undocumented queer immigrants in a cramped Jackson Heights apartment, living in a mess of mismatched dishes, jobs, and legal invisibility, felt familiar in ways I didn’t expect. I had thought of archives as places of permanence, but here, mess itself was the archive. Not in the official sense, not as something meant to be preserved but as something that resists documentation entirely. “The ‘undocumented’ immigrant is not someone who does not have documents but rather is someone whose papers are in disarray or not in proper, ‘official’ state-sanctioned order.” That idea stuck with me. The state does not simply erase people. It demands that they erase themselves, that they exist in ways that do not disrupt its order. To be undocumented is not to lack proof of existence but to exist in a way that refuses to be categorized.
Then I read Puar and Mikdashi, and my discomfort sharpened. They ask whether visibility is always liberation, whether being recognized by the archive is always the goal. And I realized I had never questioned that before. I had assumed the problem was exclusion, that the solution was inclusion. But what if to be included is to be contained? What if the act of being archived, of being made legible is itself a form of control?
Dragojlovic and Quinan took this even further, making me question the very structure of time. “Queering memory allows for an analysis of the ways in which memory, gender, and sexuality are intertwined and co-constituted.” Their argument that memory does not have to conform to the logic of archives, that it can be fluid, constantly rewritten, felt deeply personal. Their work made me rethink how memory functions for those of us who don’t have fixed origins, for those of us who live between places, between identities, between realities that refuse coherence. What if queerness is not just about resisting norms of gender and sexuality but about resisting the very way time is structured and also about rejecting the demand to fit into the logic of progress?
I keep returning to these questions:
1. If the archive constructs the boundaries of what can be known, then is knowledge itself always an act of containment? Can there be ways of knowing that do not require extraction, classification, or permanence?
2. If queerness disrupts not just identity but also the very ways we structure time, space, and history, then can memory exist outside of human experience? Could an archive be built not in records or testimonies but in the rhythms of the body, in the ephemeral, in the nonhuman? What would it mean to think of memory beyond the limits of language?
Our readings this week were really illuminating for me in thinking about how intersectional queer theory and methodology can revolutionize our understandings of memory and politics. In particular, I was drawn to the arguments presented throughout the Dragojlovic & Quinan and Mikdashi & Puar readings about “homocolonial” and “homonationalist” framings that have dominated queer theory especially because it has been developed primarily from American perspectives. Scholars like Mikdashi & Puar are thus paving the way for developing a queer theory that does not exclude racialized LGBTQIA+ identities around the globe. These intersectional perspectives feel especially important given what Mikdashi & Puar label “pinkwashing” (p.217) by oppressive regimes. This is a term that I was previously made familiar with in discussions about Gaza and how Israel flaunts its ‘progressiveness’ in supporting LGBTQIA+ rights, despite inflicting violence on Palestinian LGBTQIA+ people on a daily basis. I read a statement by Queers in Palestine in their Liberatory Demand from Queers in Palestine (https://queersinpalestine.noblogs.org/post/2023/11/08/87/) that said: “No queer liberation can be achieved with settler colonization, and no queer solidarity can be fostered if it stands blind to the racialized, capitalist, fascist, and imperialist structures that dominate us”, which I find is a powerful call to move beyond white, colonial queer theory and framing. I was particularly interested in how Mikdashi & Puar proposed expanding the definition of “queer bodies” (p.220) beyond sexuality to include bodies that have been wounded by war. I have personally never heard or thought of the word queer in this way and am intrigued by the possibility of re-thinking and expanding definitions such as this. I wonder how doing so may or may not positively impact different communities who identify as queer, and I would be interested in exploring other perspectives on this.
To tie my thoughts together, I am reflecting on the implications that these perspectives on queer theory may have for our discussions on collective memory. I found the Brown & Davidmann reading to be quite a beautiful testament of how representations of LGBTQIA+ memory have been erased, but also can be a source of hope and a symbol of love, care and community when kept alive. I was drawn to their proposal that photographs of trans people threaten scientific racism and colonial power because they are loaded with political meaning through documenting the existence of “nonnormative” (p.193) bodies and relationships despite the oppression that they have been subjected to. In this context, remembering is a form of resistance. Accordingly, intersectional approaches feel especially necessary to promote the possibility of remembering as a form of resistance for the people whose lives are affected by colonial, hetero- and cis-normative structures in multiple overlapping ways.
Q: What could a greater emphasis on intersectionality mean for the possibility of transitional justice for all marginalized communities?
This week’s assigned readings were analyzed in a variety of contexts using Queer Theory as a central theme surrounding social factors and the international system. The article that stood out to me the most was Dragojlovic, A., & Quinan, C.’s (2023) article on the formation of memory construction. This is because in my conception, the topic of gender progresses gradually as society develops; however, this article is very different from my perspective.
Specifically, in my experience of receiving education in China, for example, the topic of social identity, including LGBTQ+ is rarely mentioned, and the topic of homosexuality in particular is missing. This is because homosexuality would not have been addressed in education in China’s domestic cultural context a decade or so ago, and if possible, it was used as counter-teaching material to shape students’ perceptions of gender. For instance, many years ago, I read in the news that a textbook in a certain region of China defined homosexuality as a mental illness rather than a personal choice. Even though I do not know the authenticity of the news article, I was still surprised by the content of the textbook because it was a mistake that happened in the context of today’s society. Building on this, Manalansan et al. (2014) suggest that identification reinforces the marginalization of the LGBTQ community, and the immigrant community is used as an example in that article, who despite their struggle to survive, the group under the collective exhibits challenges to the dominant culture of the society.
Dragojlovic, A., & Quinan, C.’s (2023) also mentioned a concept that impressed me, namely “haunted speakability”. The historical evolution of the level of homosexuality identified in Chinese society has gone through several cognitive changes. In the late 20th century, homosexuality was the least recognized period because that was the social context that viewed homosexuality as not compatible with social norms. However, despite the fact that in the early 21st century, the perception of homosexuality has changed, which is reflected in the gradual appearance of homosexuality in movies, even though some of the movies were banned. Until now, people’s acceptance of homosexuality has greatly increased, but the topic of homosexuality is still discussed in society due to the long-established ideology of the previous generation of the population. While mainstream television and media still avoid discussing the topic, there are still many groups that support it in a subtle way.
Can there be a uniform standard for deciding what memories should be remembered?
When the genocide in Gaza started, I saw many people claiming that the U.S. and Israel were bombing Palestine to bring democracy and “free” queer Palestinians. But is carpet bombing really liberation? This reading really resonated with me because it critically examines how the U.S. dominates queer discourse, acting as if queerness only exists in the West, while also exposing pinkwashing—the use of LGBTQ+ rights to justify state violence ( Puar & Mikdashi, 2016). It’s heartbreaking to see pinkwashing in action, just like when corporations slap rainbow flags on their logos for Pride Month and erase them the moment July 1st arrives, reducing queer liberation to a capitalist marketing strategy (Manalansan, 2014). On a personal level, growing up as a Muslim Pakistani, queerness was never openly discussed in my household—not out of hatred, but because it was simply not a topic of conversation. The only exception was trans people, who were spoken about in a more positive light, likely because trans visibility has a long history in South Asia, where hijras have been recognized for centuries.
It wasn’t until high school, when I attended public school, that I was exposed to queer people and made LGBTQ+ friends. Fast forward to September 2024—I was in Calgary, working downtown right across from the Harry Hays federal building when the 1 Million March for Children protest began. I was honestly shocked by how many Muslims were protesting against LGBTQ+ rights, standing side by side with far-right white conservatives—people who, in any other context, would turn against them in a second. Meanwhile, LGBTQ+ activists stood on the opposite side. Months later, I saw so many queer and Two-Spirit people protesting for Palestine, marching alongside some of the very same Muslims who had protested against them. It was a moment that truly shook me. Liberation and justice can’t be a pick-and-choose situation—it has to be for all marginalized communities, including LGBTQ+ people. Seeing this solidarity pushed me to become more vocal about these issues, even though it’s been challenging, especially with my roommates. But as this reading emphasizes, true justice requires confronting contradictions, resisting the ways states and corporations exploit queerness for their own agendas, and committing to intersectional solidarity (Puar & Mikdashi, 2016; Manalansan, 2014).
500~ words are not enough for me to talk about all the reflections and feelings and thoughts I had while doing this week’s readings. I’ll try to be concise, and straight (ha!) to the point to a certain extent, but some of these thoughts are so scattered that me trying to bring them down to a concise statement would be futile.
I remember “hearing” about Queering the Map. I put hearing in quotation marks because it was mostly through the grapevines of queer Tumblr and Twitter that I knew about this map. I remember when not every country had a pin. The internet, and in particular those circles in which I tend to participate sometimes make me forget/remember that not everyone is part of the LGBTQ+ but this map I think was the first time I saw the many different experiences of people around the world. The Watson et al. article talks about how the map makes visible those things that are not normally seen. And while the article puts it in terms of relatability and how the participants were able to find experiences, they were able to relate to, another way it visibilizes queer experiences is by highlighting those experiences that do not fit within a white western archetype of what being queer means. There are posts of people in Gaza, of people in areas of the world that we do not tend to associate with “queerness” and yet, it demonstrates that queer bodies and queer experiences transcend beyond the established norm.
I was reminded of a song that goes “Who’s gonna tell us the stories, that our textbooks don’t? Tales of love that stay blurry, cause our courses won’t. Ignore the way they’re designed to erase the past. To keep good intentions secret. To force a mask.” (History Hates Lovers by Oublaire) Is it slightly cheesy? Yes, maybe. But I think it captures some of the questions that the readings raise. An archive is supposed to be something that you can consult in order to learn about something, but queer history (and queer memory) is often times not recorded in conventional ways. It is written in letters addressed to “My beloved”. It is written in non-specific pronouns in songs. It is written in anonymous asks on Tumblr.
Watson et al. talk about “place-based memorialising” (p. 101). And the moment I read that I was reminded about how there have been many places (physical places) that are important or relevant in some way to the LGBTQ+ community that have been completely demolished or renovated or they simply ceased to exist. One of those are the countless lesbian bars that have disappeared in the US and Canada (why the only thing that remains are gay bars and their singular lesbian night is a discussion for another time). Back in the 80’s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars in the US. And according to an article on Autostraddle, that number was 24 in 2021. But, as the same article points out, “But sometimes endangerment encourages preservation”. Now there are supposedly 37 lesbian bars. Because if we want to preserve the queer archives, in whichever form the come, it is up to us to keep that memory going. And I think in general, the LGBTQ+ community has very imaginative ways of keeping the memory alive, of continuing the queer archive. This is one of the few times that I feel somewhat positive about the future. To me, the best joy is queer joy is important. And this gives me queer joy.
Question:
What do future queer archives look like? What is their role in the creation of a queer future?
This week I found the idea of not knowing in the Dragojlovic and Quinan reading especially poignant. Dragojlovic and Quinan quote from Hartman- “As a writer committed to telling stories, I have endeavored to represent the lives and the nameless and the forgotten, to reckon with loss, and to respect the limits of what cannot be known” (4), and propose that queering memory can be a way to build alternative narratives that address “which memories are privileged and which memories are hidden or silenced” (also 4). Another quote from Hartman recommends “writing about what cannot be verified” and to “imagine the unknowable past” (4).
In all the conversations we’ve had about imagining alternatives (à la Krystalli, for example), I guess I had largely conceptualised imagination as something that looks forward, glancing ahead to the future to see what can be done differently. I don’t know that it had occurred to me to imagine looking back into memory– so it seems that the authors have succeeded in presenting queering archives as something that can be a “practice of innovative and generative history making” that changes how we view time and memory” (4). But it feels surprising to me now that the way I think of imagination is so uni-directional, and I wonder what it means to think of imagination stretching in all directions.
We’ve talked a bunch this term about concerns that Dragojlovic and Quinan have with regards to certain memories being privileged, and certain memories being hidden and silenced. What is written out of memory? To borrow and rephrase the classic year one university question, how do we know what we DON’T know? How can I come to know what (and who) has (/have) been written out of history? What do we do if we have forgotten things we never remembered in the first place?
It makes sense that imagination would fill a gap here. If we are trying to come to know something that is beyond the “limits of what can be known” then the only option might be to imagine. Dragojlovic and Quinan reference the politics of absence, and while this particular article talks mostly about sexuality, queerness, and race, it’s easy to see how erasure extends to other marginalized communities too.
I went to see a play recently about women in the fur trade, which I did not have high hopes for because I feel weird when I go to local theatre. It was set around the time of the Red River Rebellion, and was about conversations between an Indigenous woman, a Métis woman, and a white settler woman talking about their place in history. I’m butchering this summary but there was this incredibly poignant ending where the women have this meta moment where they address that we (the audience) are seeing them, and in seeing them, are acknowledging how many women– Indigenous women in particular– experience erasure. There is this moment where one of the women explicitly says “I don’t want to be forgotten”, and I’m not even doing it justice but it was just so moving.
The focal point of the ending (don’t read if you don’t want it spoiled) is a Louis Riel quote, “My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back”. I just learned when I googled the author of the play for this reflection, Frances Koncan, that they are actually a prof at UBC. I think that this play is a really beautiful example of what Dragojlovic and Quinan are talking about when they talk about using imagination to reach beyond the limits of what can be known to bring people into memory who have been systematically erased, whether that is through writing about Indigenous and Métis women in a play, or queering archives. Imagination is political. Imagination is necessary.
Questions:
What is our responsibility when we write about what cannot be known?
Who gets to imagine?
Why is it so hard to remember complexity?
While reading/thinking through the texts of this week, I am grounded in Anjali Arondekar’s theory of abundance in Abundance: Sexuality’s History. Arondekar challenges prevailing archival methodologies that emphasize loss, erasure, and lack in the history of sexuality, calling instead for an epistemic shift that recognizes the excess of queer archives. Rather than treating archives—especially those outside the Eurocentric frame—as sites of retrieval or recovery, Arondekar proposes an alternative reading strategy that recognizes how archives are always already abundant, discursively reassembled through each reading.
Manalansan’s Mess, Migration, and Queer Lives (2014) exemplifies this shift by rethinking the archive through the material and affective disorder of undocumented queer immigrants in Jackson Heights, NYC. He frames “mess” as a critical archival form, rejecting normative archival order in favor of the ephemeral, precarious, and lived realities of queer migrants. His work aligns with Arondekar’s argument that queer histories should not be reduced to recovery projects but recognized as always abundant and generative.
Similarly, Dragojlovic and Quinan (2023) critique visibility politics, cautioning against the assumption that making queer histories visible within dominant frameworks equates to liberation. Their work emphasizes queering memory as an act of unsettling historical narratives rather than conforming to progress-oriented Western historiography. This reinforces Arondekar’s vision of history as an expansive, discursive field rather than a fixed repository of truths.
What new insights emerge when we prioritize abundance over absence, and how might this reframe the ways we theorize queer histories beyond colonial knowledge structures?
I read an article this week on neuroscience. The article offers evidence that “in almost all situations we encounter in our daily lives, we are able to draw on our schematic knowledge about what typically happens in the world to better perceive and mentally represent our ongoing experiences.” In other words, we create narrative scripts for ourselves and then as we encounter situations we assign them to one of our narrative scripts. These scripts impact what information we encode, or in other words, our memory.
On the one hand, obviously. On the other hand, reading this process some of the ideas we’re discussing this week. Sometimes you need to hear something a different way.
I’ve been working with the idea of stories that cannot accurately be told this week. Maybe something is known but is not understandable to the person who experienced it. Maybe something is not representable. Maybe something is not understandable to others. In “Queering memory: Toward re-membering otherwise,” the concept of haunted speakability is introduced, which requires “a careful attention to what might be concealed or is indeed unspeakable and beyond representability.”
I wonder if some stories are rendered unutterable because we don’t have scripts for them. We have no foundation to layer the story over and so we cannot understand it, either for ourselves or when it is shared with us. I know that some of the experiences I have struggled the most with are the ones that didn’t follow any script I could have possibly known or imagined. And what’s worse are the experiences I have been unable to turn into a narrative. I carry them with me like a burden while they rot and fester.
Another line that stayed with me from Dragojlovic and Quinan’s article was “to imagine the unknowable past.” Is this not the same as learning we cannot know the whole of anything? That there is not one truth looking back nor is there one singular experience of the hare-and-now? And thus, the future cannot be known either, so it must not be predetermined. What lightness that gives to existence, knowing that while I carry a whole life’s experiences, I only carry one life’s experiences! How much must we need each other if we can carry so little (and yet so much) with our own hands. How special it is when we can share experiences and yet where does that become imposing our experiences on others, especially when we do not know, cannot understand, do not share scripts with them?
I read a book in high school, Under the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner, which is a work of autobiographical fiction set during the Cambodian genocide. In an interview about the book, Ratner says, “I was a small child when the Khmer Rouge took over the country. Revisiting that period of our life, I found that I couldn’t trust myself completely to recall the exact details of the events and places and the chronology of our forced exodus from the city to the countryside, the journey from one place to the next during the span of those four years. I did initially try to write it as a memoir. But sorting through my own memories and what my mother was able to share with me, as well as the historical record, I kept asking myself again and again, What is the story I want to tell? What is my purpose for telling it?”
As far as I am concerned, the story Ratner tells is not less true for being fiction.
As for queering archives, what is the goal of archives anyway? Is it the recording of Fact? Truth? (which of course is always at least partially incomplete, narrow, and unknowable) Or is it simply a record that we exist, we existed, we are and were here? Is the sharing of these archives fundamentally the gifting of (potentially novel) scripts?
Non-course reading texts cited:
Baldassano, Christopher, Uri Hasson, and Kenneth A. Norman. 2018. “Representation of Real-World Event Schemas during Narrative Perception.” The Journal of Neuroscience 38 (45): 9689-9699.
Vaddey Ratner, “A Conversation with Vaddey Ratner on In the Shadow of the Banyan,” accessed March 3, 2024, https://vaddeyratner.com/banyan/q-a.
Reading Manalansan, Mikdashi and Puar, and Dragojlovic and Quinan this week made me think about the agency of visibility, archival erasure, and the ways in which queerness is documented, erased, or concealed. Manalansan’s concept of “mess” was particularly striking to me as it showed how cluttered, undocumented, and precarious queer immigrant existences serve as an alternative archive beyond the state-sanctioned and normative ways of recording history. The idea that not all queer histories can be neatly archived resonated with my thoughts on India’s own complex history with queer rights. While ancient texts and temple sculptures such as those at Khajuraho from as far back as the 18th Century depicted same-sex relationships, colonial rule criminalized homosexuality, and its legal and social consequences persist today. Even though homosexuality was decriminalized recently, I wonder how these changing socio-legal contexts changed the way Indian queer memories were recorded.
In many ways, Mikdashi and Puar’s work also complicated my understanding of visibility, particularly through their exploration of the concept of homonationalism. While India has had a long tradition of recognizing what it calls the ‘third gender’ even from ancient times, queer people in India often seek to move abroad to countries in the Global North that have the legal provisions to ensure their rights. It was also interesting to read how queer theory has been primarily developed within US academia, often overlooking geopolitical specificities outside of Euro-American contexts.
This also made me think about how queer memory is nonlinear and disruptive, as Dragojlovic and Quinan show. Traditional archives tend to impose order and linearity and reinforce heteronormative structures of remembering. This also reminded me of Lihaaf, an Urdu story I read over a decade ago as a literature student. The author, Ismat Chughtai, used the metaphor of a shroud (a blanket) and silence to convey the main character’s queerness in a story written in 1940. This spoke to the politics of erasure and survival – how invisibility, at times, is the only way to exist safely. Just as Chughtai was put on trial for obscenity for writing the story, queer histories today still face censorship, whether through state suppression or exclusion from mainstream archives.
*10th Century