Winnubst - Way too cool : selling out race and ethics

Way Too Cool

Way Too Cool

SELLING OUT RACE AND ETHICS

Shannon Winnubst

Columbia University Press New York

IN MEMORY OF

Patricia Lou LeGer Winnubst

19322011

CONTENTS

This book has seen many twists and turns over several years of research and, accordingly, I have many individuals and audiences to thank for engaging various aspects of the project: for indulging all kinds of inchoate musings and speculations about neoliberalism, late liberalism, biopolitics, Foucault, precarity, pain, pleasure, and the social contract, Ladelle McWhorter, Jana Sawicki, Falguni Sheth, Kimberly Springer, Mary Thomas, Matt Coleman, Phillip Armstrong, Becky Mansfield, Marc Spindelman, Michael Bray, and graduate students in Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Comparative Studies at Ohio State, especially Meredith Lee, Matt Brenn, and Divya Sundar; for thinking about race and all its damning contortions, bell hooks and Kimberly Springer; for persistent thinking and work on ethics, bell hooks, Lynne Huffer, and Cynthia Willett; for helpful suggestions and feedback on thinking through Lacan, Andrew Cutrofello and Tim Dean; for indulging a stream of random questions on Marx, Amy Wendling; for disabusing me of pursuing apathy as a neoliberal affect, Falguni Sheth; for priceless help in navigating the contemporary world of cool, J. Brendan Shaw; for helping me sort through the difficulty of writing about New Orleans, Thom McClendon; for encouraging me to embrace charts and tables (to say the least), Alison Kafer; for brainstorming cool titles, Andy Cavins, Lynaya Elliott, and Tess Pugsley; and for inspiring cheerleading, Marie Draz, Perry Zurn, and Andrew Dilts. I also offer a special thanks to Kehinde Wiley for allowing me to use his artwork on the cover and in the fifth interlude, which captures real cool now. At Columbia University Press, I thank Wendy Lochner for believing in this project for so long and Christine Dunbar for tireless assistance. I thank an anonymous reviewer for generously reining in parts of my argument regarding Marxism and pushing me to think more seriously about social cathexis. Finally, I thank Lynne Huffer for believing in this project with such enthusiasm and becoming an important voice in my final thinking about it: your generosity and fierce insight are inspiring.

The book was also written across several profound transitions in my life and I am grateful to many for seeing me through these joyous and difficult times. Without this kind of support, I could never have found a way to sustain the focus or spirit of this project. For catching us in Columbus, I am forever grateful to Sandra Macpherson, Luke Wilson, Roma Cady, and Margo Lucy; Mary Thomas, Mat Coleman, and Tom Cosmo; Mollie Blackburn, Mindi Rhoades, Blais and Dottie Grey; Tanya Erzen, Bill Quigley, and Tilda; and my wonderful colleagues in the Department of Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. For hanging on to us in Austin, I remain deeply grateful to Kris Hogan and Milly Gleckler, Kathleen Juhl, Alison Kafer and Dana Newlove, and Thom McClendon and Nancy Schmechel McClendon. And for always being there, for such a long time now, I thank Ton Winnubst, Kimmy Dee Winnubst and Sue Rivers, Mark, Shelbi, Morgan, Rachel and J. Willies Winnubst, bell hooks, Eric Selbin, Helen Cordes, Jesse Cordes Selbin, Zoe Cordes Selbin, Erin FitzGerald, Craig Irvine, John Spooner, Jennifer Byrne, Mark Hersh, Margaret and Jay Suchland, Mary and John Grundy, and all my fantastic extended Winnubst (and Stammetje) family on both sides of the Atlantic.

Both the Department of Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio State University have offered generous institutional and financial support of this project. I particularly thank Jill Bystdyzienski for her steadfast and generous support: she has helped me make sense of my move to the Department of Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and to Ohio State time and time again. I also thank the amazing staff in WGSS, Lynaya Elliott, Andy Cavins, and Tess Pugsley, all of whom inspire me, keep me honest, and make my life and work much richer and easier. Additionally, I thank Nikki Engel and Debanuj DasGupta for early assistance with research and the College of Arts and Sciences for a semester research leave that allowed me to complete the manuscript. Finally, I thank my remarkable colleagues in the Department of Womens, Gender, and Sexuality studies for the relentless pursuit of all forms of resistance and justice, especially those that draw across disciplinary boundaries: this book is the fruit of landing in this amazing intellectual space.

I have also benefited from presenting various parts of the book to generous and rigorous audiences at the following organizations and institutions: the Department of Philosophy at Emory University, hosted by Cynthia Willett; a scholarly session arranged by Gail Weiss at the International Association of Philosophy and Literature; the Gloria Anzalda Speakers Series at University of Texas-Pan America, arranged by Adriel Trott; a scholarly session arranged by Alia Al-Saji at the American Philosophical Association, with a response by Falguni Sheth; a panel at the Society of Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, with a response by Peter Gratton; the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program at the University of Richmond; the Queer Places, Practices, and Lives conference at Ohio State; a plenary panel arranged by Marc Spindelman at the Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice conference at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State; the Queerly Political/Politically Queer Speakers Series at Trent University, initiated by Emilia Angelova; and a plenary panel arranged by Shannon Sullivan at the PhiloSOPHIA conference at the Pennsylvania State University. I am very grateful to the hosts and audiences of these various talks, where I received invaluable feedback that has shaped much of my thinking in the book.

Finally, I must put words to the impossible task of thanking Jennifer Suchland and Micah Simone Suchland-Winnubst for the many wonders of our shared world, along with Phaedrus, MoZoe, and Sir Walter. Micah Simone, a force for joy in the world, has taught me aspects of play, pleasure, space, and time I could have never imagined: I hope you remain forever uncool. Jennifer Suchland has lived through this book and all the events that have surrounded it with a sheer will to flourish that refuses any neoliberal reduction. Our traveling together has, across all these years, become a bumpy, raucous ride that I cherish. I am deeply grateful for her patience, insight, laughter, perseverance, sharp wit, and grounding: this book would not exist without her.