Shaka McGlotten - The Political Aesthetics of Drag

This book uses portraits of drag performers to tell stories about contemporary art and activisms, as well as the interlocking cultural geographies of New York City, Berlin, and Israel/Palestine. Rather than take a more traditional academic approach in which ethnographic material would be embedded in chapters that address larger thematic concerns such as neoliberalism, globalization, ethno-racial violence, or gentrification, to take only a few examples, McGlotten develops the thematic threads of the book through the stories and lives of the performers. Themes emerge through the resonances that are generated in and between the portraits, as the lives and political and creative work of the performers converge with one another in and around their creative practices, everyday activities, their views on the changing nature of their social spaces, and the violences they necessarily navigate. These portraits will be framed and supplemented by at least two, more traditional essays that will appear at the books opening and at its conclusion. The introduction will situate my project in relationship to earlier scholarship on drag from queer studies and anthropology, as well as provide an overview and rationale for my methodological approach. The conclusion will tease out the implications of the project, drawing connections between the portraits and underscoring the political and affective possibilities the drag performers offer for living life in an era of increasing social precarity. --Provided by publisher.