LibGuides: Queer Studies: Background Info

Background Info from Academic Level Electronic Sources

Background sources are especially useful when you are just starting your research, but they can also help you throughout the process. These types of sources can provide a brief summary of a topic, explain important theories, define commonly used terms, and provide biographical information on important people in the field.

Research Tip: Search for broad-scope topics, theories, terms, or people in these types of sources. For example:

Michel Foucault
gender non-conforming
social constructionism

CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Full-text detailed reports on controversial social, economic, political, educational, health, environmental, technology, and current topics. Each report includes an abstract, overview, background summary, current situation, outlook, special focus, chronology, pro/con, and bibliography.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. Provides searchable full-text e-book versions of over 3,500 reference works, including multi-volume encyclopedias, biographical collections, business plan handbooks, company history compilations, consumer health references, and specialized handbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. in a wide range of subject areas.
Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Covers a wide range of controversial topics and results may include sources such as magazine, newspaper or journal articles, government documents, political position papers, public policy statements, legal and legislative materials, pamphlets, statistical data, biographies, court cases, and links websites.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
Collection of 260+ Reference books; including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and books of quotations, includes resources in a wide range of fields.

Background Info from Books

Enclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered History in America by Marc Stein
ISBN: 0684314274
Publication Date: 2004
Survey of more than 400 years of lesbian and gay history and culture in the United States, presented through over 500 alphabetically arranged entries.
Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender by Fedwa Malti-Douglas (Editor)
Call Number: Full Text Online
ISBN: 9780028659602
Publication Date: 2007
Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History
Call Number: Full Text Online
ISBN: 9780684325545
Publication Date: 2019
Queer Cinema in America: an Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Films, Characters, and Stories by Aubrey Malone
ISBN: 9781440867163
Publication Date: 2020
Taking us from a time when LGBTQ characters were often represented as either caricatures or figures of farce, this lively yet authoritative reference explores the sea change ushered in by such stars
The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts by Claude J. Summers (Editor)
Call Number: 5th Floor South N72.H64 Q44 2004
ISBN: 1573441910
Publication Date: 2004
A comprehensive work showcasing the enormous contribution of gay, lesbian, transgender and queer artists to painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpture and architecture.

The Book of Pride by Mason Funk
Call Number: Basement North HQ73.3.U6 F86 2019
ISBN: 9780062571700
Publication Date: 2019
Captures the true story of the gay rights movement from the 1960s to the present, through richly detailed, stunning interviews with the leaders, activists, and ordinary people who witnessed the movement and made it happen.
Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States by Emmanuel S. Nelson (Editor)
Call Number: 3rd Floor North PS153.S39 E53 2009
ISBN: 9780313348594
Publication Date: 2009
In this two-volume work, hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries survey contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer American literature and its social contexts.
Gay Lives by Robert Aldrich
Call Number: Basement North HQ75.2 .A537 2012
ISBN: 9780500251904
Publication Date: 2012
Presents a fascinating portrait of gay men and women throughout history that reveals the full diversity of gay lives as lived in their times.
Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer Asian/Pacific American Activists by Kevin Kumashiro
ISBN: 1136572643
Publication Date: 2013-04-03
Presents the first-person accounts of 20 activists--life stories that work against common stereotypes, shattering misconceptions and dispelling misinformation.

Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability by Robert McRuer
ISBN: 9780814757123
Publication Date: 2006
A bold and contemporary discourse of the intersection of disability studies and queer studies.
The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects by Mari Ruti
Call Number: HQ76.25 .R88 2017
ISBN: 9780231180900
Publication Date: 2017
Ruti highlights the ways in which queer theory's desire to opt out of normative society rewrites ethical theory and practice in genuinely innovative ways at the same time as she resists turning antinormativity into a new norm.
Feminism Meets Queer Theory by Elizabeth Weed; Naomi Schor
Call Number: HQ1190 .F442 1997
ISBN: 9780253332783
Publication Date: 1997
Focuses on the encounters of feminist and queer theories, on the ways in which basic terms such as - sex, gender, and sexuality change meaning as they move from one body of theory to another.
No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive by Lee Edelman
Call Number: HQ76.25 .E34 2004
ISBN: 9780822333692
Publication Date: 2004
In No Future, Edelman urges queers to abandon the stance of accommodation and accede to their status as figures for the force of a negativity that he links with irony, jouissance, and, ultimately, the death drive itself.
Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature by Qwo-Li Driskill (Editor); Chris Finley (Editor); Brian Joseph Gilley (Editor); Scott Lauria Morgensen (Editor)
Call Number: 5th Floor South E98.S48 Q84 2011
ISBN: 9780816529070
Publication Date: 2011
Rooted in the Indigenous Americas and the Pacific, and drawing on disciplines ranging from literature to anthropology, contributors to Queer Indigenous Studies call Indigenous GLBTQ2 movements and allies to center an analysis that critiques the relationship between colonialism and heteropatriarchy.
Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer by Riki Wilchins
Call Number: HQ76.25 .W55 2004
ISBN: 9781555837983
Publication Date: 2004
A one-stop, no-nonsense introduction to the work of postmodern theorists like Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault and Judith Butler that has redefined women's, gay and gender studies.

The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault
Call Number: New Book Shelf HQ12 .F6813 1990
ISBN: 9780679724698
Publication Date: 1978
Michel Foucult offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Judith Butler
Call Number: HQ1154 .B88 1990
ISBN: 9780415900430
Publication Date: 1989
Ever since feminist theory introduced the distinction between sex and gender, the question of what it means to be a woman has preoccupied feminist thought. In GenderTrouble Judith Butler questions whether it is possible to "be" a woman at all or, for that matter, any gender.
Queer Theory: An Introduction by Annamarie Jagose
Call Number: HQ76.25 .J34 1996
ISBN: 9780814742334
Publication Date: 1997
In this groundbreaking work, Jagose provides a clear and concise explanation of queer theory, tracing it as part of an intriguing history of same-sex love over the last century.
Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Elizabeth Clare
Call Number: HQ1426 .C56 1999
ISBN: 9780896086050
Publication Date: 1999
In interconnected essays, Clare links her life to the "rednecks" and clearcuts she grew up among, the "freak shows" of the nineteenth century, and the "transgender warriors" of today. Her intelligence and wit shine through her ruminations on cerebral palsy, child abuse, and her love of nature, and the connections among the histories of disabled people, women, and gay/lesbian/bi/trans people.
The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life by Michael Warner
Call Number: HQ32 .W367 1999
ISBN: 9780684865294
Publication Date: 1999
In this essay on the dangers of normality, Michael Warner sends a warning shot to the gay rights movement, which has cleaned up its image in order to blend in with the mainstream. He presents an analysis of the politics of shame and the stigma of sexual identity.
How to Do the History of Homosexuality by David M. Halperin
Call Number: HQ76 .H28 2002
ISBN: 0226314472
Publication Date: 2002
Halperin offers a vigorous defense of the historicist approach to the construction of sexuality, an approach that sets a premium on the description of other societies in all their irreducible specificity and does not force them to fit our own conceptions of what sexuality is or ought to be.
Epistemology of the Closet, Updated with a New Preface by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
ISBN: 0520254066
Publication Date: 2008
Working from classic texts of European and American writers (including Melville, James, Nietzsche, Proust, and Wilde) Sedgwick analyzes a turn-of-the-century historical moment in which sexual orientation became as important a demarcation of personhood as gender had been for centuries.
Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity by José Esteban Muñoz
Call Number: HQ76.25 .M86 2009
ISBN: 9780814757277
Publication Date: 2009
Drawing on the work of Ernst Bloch, José Esteban Muñoz recalls the queer past for guidance in presaging its future.
Female Masculinity by Jack Halberstam
ISBN: 9781478002703
Publication Date: 2018
In this quintessential work of queer theory, Jack Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two centuries.

Queer Studies

Background Info from Academic Level Electronic Sources

Background Info from Books

The history behind the word "queer"

Web Accessibility