Reviving the Queer Political Imagination: Affect, Archives, and Anti-Normativity Ryan Conrad A Thesis in the Humanities Interdisciplinary Program Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture Presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada April 2017 © Ryan Conrad, 2017 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Ryan Conrad Entitled: Reviving the Queer Political Imagination: Affect, Archives, and Anti-Normativity and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Humanities) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: Chair Rebecca Duclos Susan Knabe External Examiner Monika Gagnon External to Program Anne Whitelaw Examiner Deborah Gould Examiner Thomas Waugh Thesis Supervisor Approved by: Graduate Program Director 10 April 2017 Dean of Faculty Abstract Reviving the Queer Political Imagination: Affect, Archives, and Anti-Normativity Ryan Conrad, PhD Concordia University, 2017 Through investigating three cultural archives spanning the last three decades, this dissertation elucidates the causes and dynamics of the sharp conservative turn in gay and lesbian politics in the United States beginning in the 1990s, as well as the significance of this conservative turn for present-day queer political projects. While many argue that growing supremacy of the ideology of neoliberalism is a root cause of such political reorientations, this hypothesis remains woefully inadequate. By examining queer activist AIDS art and its changing metaphors from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, and examining how battles over sexual orientation-inclusive non-discrimination law were felt and understood by citizen journalists working in the gay and lesbian press from the early 1990s to the early 2000s, this dissertation accounts for the nonconscious emergence of collective moods and shared minoritarian affects that have narrowed the queer political imagination. This research is informed by theoretical frameworks provided by Raymond Williams (structures of feeling), Deborah Gould (emotional habitus), Jonathan Flatley (affective mapping), and José Muñoz (utopian longing), all of which foreground an analysis of affect as integral to an understanding of history, subjectivity, and the political. Lastly, this dissertation examines the work of Against Equality, a group I co-founded, as a site of resistance that reinvigorates and expands the queer political imagination in the present political moment. ! iii Acknowledgments To my invaluable and generous thesis supervisor and sister in struggle Thomas Waugh. To my committee members Anne Whitelaw and Deborah Gould, as well as previous committee members Evergon and José Muñoz. To my Against Equality comrades: Karma Chávez, Deena Loeffler, Yasmin Nair, and Alexandra Silverthorne. To my friends new and old, without your material, intellectual, and emotional support over the last six years, I would not have survived. In particular: Jeremy Rutkiewicz, Vanessa Stasse, Nicole Bedard, Joey Wilbur, Erica Rand, Wendy Chapkis, and Susie Bock in Maine and Greg Bourgoin, Vincent Chevalier, Antoine Damiens, Adam Hodgins, Sima Kokotovic, Abelardo León, Florencia Marchetti, Laurence Parent, Gary Lee Pelletier, Braden Scott, Ardath Whynacht, Alexis Shotwell, Gary Kinsman, and Melissa White in Canada. To the international cabal of queers, anarchists, hustlers, dykes, and artfags who have kept this life interesting and worth writing about: Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, Johannesburg, Cape Town, London, Glasgow, and those spread out across small towns and cities in the United States and Canada, you know who you are. Thank you. ! iv Contribution of Authors The bulk of this thesis is written solely by the author. There are sections of Chapter Four, Imagine Resistance, based on co-authored works created by the Against Equality collective. These co-authored texts have been updated and revised by the author of this dissertation project, but were originally formed through a collective writing and editing process. These section are marked clearly within the thesis itself. For further clarification, the sections based on collective works are listed below. Chapter Four, Imagine Resistance Against Equality: An Overview of the Arguments, pages 4-29. Self-Publication: Seizing the Means of Production of Knowledge, pages 50-57 The members of the Against Equality collective who contributed to the creation of the original texts upon which these sections are based are: Karma Chávez, Ryan Conrad, Deena Loeffler, and Yasmin Nair. ! v Table of Contents Reviving the Queer Political Imagination: Affects, Archives, and Anti-Normativity List of Figures . ix List of Tables. xii Introduction. 1 Project Overview. 1 Research Questions. 3 In the Turn. 6 Chapter by Chapter . 7 Chapter 1) Theory and Methodology . 14 Introduction . 14 Introducing Affect Theory. 15 What is an Emotion? . 18 Affect and Drives. 18 Sensations, Feelings, Emotions. 20 Structures of Feeling . 22 Emotional Habitus. 24 Affective Mapping . 25 Atmosphere and Mood . 27 How to Attend to Affect? . 29 Ontology . 31 Psychoanalysis. 34 Phenomenology. 36 Queer Critique. 38 Why Affect Theory? . 42 Affect and the Political Imagination. 43 The Queer Political Imagination. 48 Notes on Methodology . 51 Chapter 2) Revisiting AIDS and Its Metaphors. 55 Introduction. 55 Partial Histories and Metaphors in the Making. 56 Genocide? . 60 Framing Genocide and the Politics of Emotions. 90 Forgetting AIDS as Genocide . 93 Remembering the Dead. 95 Trauma, Memory, Postmemory. 98 Chapter 3) Another Decade of Loss in Our Own Words. 112 Introduction . 112 ! vi Leaving the Metropolis . 114 Non-Discrimination Law in the United States. 116 National Context in the 1990s . 119 Maine’s Initiatives and Referenda History . 123 State Citizen Initiative 1995 . 126 State Referendum 1998. 128 State Referendum 2000 . 129 State Referendum 2005 . 130 Maine Municipal Referenda. .132 Portland 1992. 132 Lewiston 1993 . 133 Ogunquit 1998 . .135 South Portland 1998. 136 Falmouth 1999 . .137 Westbrook 2002. 138 Overview of All Initiatives and Referenda in Maine. 139 Citizen Journalism and Maine’s Gay and Lesbian Press. 142 Our Paper / The Gay and Lesbian Times of Maine (1983-1993) . 147 Apex: A Point of Departure (1992-1995) . 151 Community Pride Reporter (1993-1999) . 160 10%: Maine's Monthly Newspaper for Lesbians & Gay Men (1994-1995) . 166 Maine GayNet . ..