In this episode of Drag Pod, Lily Krank examines the chapter “Drag Kings: Masculinity and Performance” from Jack Halberstam’s 1998 book Female Masculinity. A key chapter in Halberstam’s ground-breaking work on queer fem, lesbian, and butch identities, this text examines the history of “male impersonation” and its connection to contemporary drag practices, while also placing it conversation with gender theory. Halberstam also examines drag kinging’s relative obscurity when compared to the explosive popularity and mainstream interest of drag queens, a conversation that was entirely timely in our class in the age of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Lily also invited her friend and contemporary drag king Stevie Nips to discuss their work and chat about observations from Halberstam’s chapter.
Halberstam, Jack. “Drag Kings: Masculinity and Performance.” in Female Masculinity. Duke University Press, 1998.
Drag Pod- CULT 400: Drag and Popular Culture
Dr. Cameron Crookston
The Drag Pod assignment in CULT 400: Drag and Popular Culture was created to give students a chance to further engage with a course reading, practice their research skill, and explore their own personal interests in the course material. Each student selected one of the assigned course readings as the topic of their podcast. They were then asked to provide a close reading of the text and conduct some basic additional research on one element of the text to provide further context for their audience. Podcast episodes were shared with the rest of the class to as a kind of “study aid” and to prompt class discussions.
