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Future Queer: an Introduction to José Muñoz (in-person Brooklyn Institute for Social Research course)
April 7 @ 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research presents Future Queer: an Introduction to José Muñoz at the Bureau
Instructor: Hannah Leffingwell
“Queerness is not yet here,” José Esteban Muñoz declares. And yet, his work is animated by sympathetic, often exuberant explorations and nuanced analyses of queer performance and queer activism—from the evanescent installations of Felix Gonzales-Torres to the reparative performances of Nao Bustamante. What does it mean, then, to propose that queerness has yet to arrive? What are the dimensions of normativity—political, aesthetic, temporal—that seek to forestall it? And with what tools might queerness be, eventually, realized? Drawing on a wide variety of thinkers, concepts, and discourses, from Ernst Bloch to Lauren Berlant, from “structures of feeling” to “counterpublics,” from psychoanalysis to theories of race, sexuality, and performance, Muñoz takes an interdisciplinary and decidedly optimistic approach to queerness as a horizon of radical potentiality. Whether breaking new ground with his theory of disidentification—an anti-normative orientation for queers and people of color that both embraces and subverts stereotypes—or attending to the potency of gesture in drag and dance, Muñoz helps us envision and construct queer worlds using materials scavenged from the normative trappings of identity. If queerness is not here yet, how, thinking with Muñoz, can we bring it about?
In this course we’ll read from José Muñoz’s classic Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, examining along the way other essays by him and work by the artists he cites, including, among others, Bustamante, Gonzalez-Torres, Amiri Baraka, Frank O’Hara, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. We’ll ask: how does “disidentification” traverse the dual allure of identification with and transgression of dominant cultural meanings? What strategies does aesthetics offer, if what we are seeking is a rearrangement of everyday practices as well as structural and communal change? How might theory itself be re-conceptualized from the perspective of artistic practices? And how might our own engagement—or disidentification—with contemporary discourses bring about queerness in the here and now?
“Future Queer: an Introduction to José Muñoz (In-Person)” is being held in partnership with the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, an all-volunteer queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space hosted by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. For a limited time, the Bureau is selling José Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia at a 20% discount ($22.40 instead of $28)—just mention the course when purchasing in-store!
Course Schedule
Monday, 6:30-9:30pm ET*
April 07 — April 28, 2025
4 weeks
$335.00
Three scholarship spaces are reserved for each course, because we realize that not everyone can afford to pay the full fee. Students who cannot pay the full fee should email us at info@thebrooklyninstitute.com to learn about our scholarship options. We will not ask questions about your financial situation, but we do ask that you use the system in good faith and consider the needs of other students and faculty members.
Register here!
*Please note: the Bureau is not open on Mondays. We will open for this course at 6 PM.
Image: David Wojnarowicz, Science Lesson (detail), 1982-83.
