Larry Kramer unloads on Yale and the overtaking of gay history by "gender studies, queer studies, queer theory." Why, Kramer asks, "is the History Department allowing history to be hijacked by the queer theorists just as the English Department allowed Paul DeMan and Jacques Derrida to highjack literature for the deconstructionists? That travesty found safe haven here at Yale too." All respect to Kramer, but this is bollocks - and I mean that literally: a dick-centric denial of all the positive possibilities and inclusivities of "queer."
Tenured Radical, herself a graduate of Yale, provides the necessary rejoinder.
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Update: Further response to the Larry crazy at Historiann (pleasingly tagged "wankers"), and Scott Jaschlik at Inside Higher Ed garners quotage from scholars, including some, like George Chauncey, whom Kramer actually invokes in his rant.
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Oh, Larry Kramer. I don't think I can respond more cogently than the other commentators, except to say that this is more of the same with Kramer. He's made a significant contribution to gay activism, especially in terms of AIDS research back in the 80's, but his beef with "queer," or aesthetics more generally, goes back, at least, to the 70's (even as he was writing *Faggots*). He seems to want "gay" to be both singular (men loving men as something distinct from other erotic, "queer," relationships) and universal (gay men are just like every other monogamous, stable, happy, child-loving couple). He didn't like clone culture in the 70's, he didn't like Edmund White or anything not-directly-AIDS-related in the 80's, and he doesn't like queer.
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