Dragging: Or, in the Drag of a Queer Life (in person & live-streaming)

Join anthropologist and artist Shaka McGlotten & drag king Maxxx Pleasure for the launch of Dragging: Or, in the Drag of a Queer Life. Dragging is a book about artists and activists who use drag in Berlin, Israel/Palestine, and New York. It is also an autoethnographic account of illness, failing at being a good anthropologist, and losing out on love.

There will be a presentation that focuses on some of the Israeli and Palestinian figures featured in the book, followed by a discussion with drag king Maxxx Pleasure, and Q & A.

Anthropologist Esther Newton has described the book as “a fascinating mashup of memoir, interviews, ethnographic observation, and cultural theory, following on the work of José Munoz, Marlon Baily, Lauren Berlant, Eve Sedgwick and others.”

To reserve a copy of Dragging: Or, in the Drag of a Queer Life. Dragging (Routledge, 2021, paperback, $49.99), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve copy of Dragging for Nov. 10th event.”

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:

youtube.com/@bgsqd

Shaka McGlotten is Professor of Media Studies and Anthropology at Purchase College-SUNY, where they also serve as Chair of Media Studies and Gender Studies programs. An anthropologist and artist, their work stages encounters between black study, queer theory, media, and art. They have written and lectured widely on networked intimacies and messy computational entanglements as they interface with queer of color lifeworlds.

They are the author of Dragging: Or, in the Drag of a Queer Life (Routledge, 2021), Virtual Intimacies: Media, Affect, and Queer Sociality (SUNY, 2013), and dozens of chapters and articles. They are also the co-editor of two edited collections, Black Genders and Sexualities (with Dana-ain Davis, Palgrave, 2012) and Zombies and Sexuality (with Steve Jones, McFarland, 2014). Their work has been supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Akademie Schloss Solitude, the Andy Warhol Foundation, and Data & Society.

Maxxx Pleasure is an award-winning drag king based in NYC. He shares advice for all kinds of drag performers and stories from his own drag journey (like performing at Bushwig, the Austin International Drag Festival, Sasha Velour’s Nightgowns, winning the Brooklyn Nightlife Award for Drag King of the Year, inspiring the short documentary MAXXX, and even more)! Maxxx also weighs in on LGBTQ+ issues and conversations, reviews tv shows, movies, books, and music videos, and can’t help but fangirl (fan-person?) over his favorite celebs.