Announcing a “series” of posts on Afrofuturism, queerness, and pop divas

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I’m happy to announce that, over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing a series of posts related to some research I’ve been doing this summer. The title of the series is:

This robot is so not a ‘dick in drag’: race, queerness, and the humanist or posthuman future in Madonna, Beyonce, and Lady Gaga

Here’s a brief summary of the series:

In contrast to Madonna’s humanism, Beyonce and Lady Gaga offer us two different postmillennial posthumanisms. Beyonce’s is more or less textbook Afrofuturist cyborg feminist, and Gaga’s is more queer technogoth (or, postmillennial wannabe P.Orridge). While I think there are grounds for claiming that Beyonce’s approach is also (at least in some sense) queer, I am uncertain if Gaga’s dystopian futurism actually does much to de-center or “queer” whiteness.

I’m using Lee Edelman’s framework for thinking about “reproductive futurism” and queerness. I’ve discussed it before in this post:

http://its-her-factory.blogspot.com/2010/03/joy-of-repetition-really-is-in-you-lee.html

You can also look here for more on Edelman: http://glq.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/12/2/341.pdf (scroll down to the second review)

I’ll be posting the Madonna section today, to be followed by Beyonce and then by Gaga.