On the Queer Cutting-Edge

Jeffrey Q. McCune and Marlon M Bailey, two leaders in the field of Queer Studies, sat down to discuss the impact of QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking—addressing its significance, its scope, and its critical contribution to the interdisciplinary study of queerness and sexuality. Marlon M. Bailey: I first heard of QED during the COVID-19 pandemic, when I was invited to contribute to a forum. This was during a pandemic where I was sequestered. We were isolated, chile. I was in my house for eight months. And not being able to experience intimacy and have my body touched and going through a lot of emotional challenges trying to survive, but it also caused me to focus on the importance of emotionality. These are areas that, you know, in the sort of conventional publishing situation—there are not always opportunities for you to think critically about your own experience and narrate that whole experience. From a queer perspective, we might call it putting queer into practice. Right? It is really about thinking your experiences from a queer perspective in everyday practice.I think QED, in my first experience of being able to explore sex and intimacy in the time of COVID, was really freeing for me. It was freeing and it was transformative.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Yeah, you know, one of the things that I think is unique about QED is its engagement with the contemporary. That is truly what drew me to the journal. Part of what we see in QED, is a journal that takes on contemporaneous issues and allows forums, film reviews, and peer-reviewed essay issue—wherein people can actually think through the contemporary and how contemporary issues affect queer life. And special to QED, for me and the work that we do, is that it really creates an avenue for young scholars to take very seriously, not just white queer studies, but also that in the contemporaneousness of Queer studies—where we must account for the experiences and representations of people of color. We must account for these other ways of knowing pleasure, as you suggest. What is COVID to Black and brown queer people? How does a journal move against the National Communication Association being so white, right? Even as we know QED is beyond discipline of communication studies. These kinds of questions seem to be very ripe for QED—and though we may have longed for these spaces historically—the co-editorship of Chuck and Tom have created a forum for many voices.Jeffrey Q. McCune: So, part of what I really enjoy when I think about QED as a worldmaking, it's about the world making of scholars through academic discourse from various perspectives. It's not just from a singular communication studies or singular Black studies or singular women, gender sexuality studies or singular white queer studies. It actually allows us an intellectual space that is both interdisciplinary, that is intertextual, that is intercultural. That's really what makes it so exciting.Marlon M. Bailey: Yeah, and I like what you said about interdisciplinarity, as worldmaking is an interdisciplinary endeavor. QED has contributed to this concept, this literacy for worldmaking, as it emphasizes quotidian practices and what it means to live gender and sexuality from a queer perspective. But you need different voices coming from different fields and disciplines, different methodological and methods perspectives in order to adequately capture the complexity of what it means to live gender and sexuality queerly, particularly during this time.And just to go back to the forum and the special issue on COVID, it gets back to your point about it being contemporary. QED captures the current challenges, current conditions, current practices to address those challenges, and currents in social, economic, and political health. I think that the COVID special issue along with many others were really important to create a forum of different scholars to come together and think about what the relationships are between the lived relationships or between and the disproportionate impact. For example, my piece in that special issue highlights concepts that I am developing called deep intimacy and emotional pleasure. At the time, I was involved in a, looking back I would call, a complex friendship that ended up being unhealthy for me. But the special issue of QED gave me the reflective/introspective space to contemplate what deep intimacy and emotional pleasure mean for me, as well as what they might mean for others during a moment of COVID quarantine. While that friendship, along with therapy, help me survive COVID emotionally, which is so important, writing that short essay initiated important thinking about concept such as emotional pleasure, safety, availability, and trauma. These are concepts that I am developing for a future book project, “friendship and its limits,” that will be ethnographic and auto-ethnographic. The special issue of QED on COVID 19 helped me start conceptualizing some of my core concepts for that project. Unfortunately, the friendship ended, but now I can offer a theorization of the lived realities of Black queerness during a pandemic.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Yes.Jeffrey Q. McCune: This seems a good place to talk about just the publication history of QED. Particularly, the work that you and I have been able to do together inside of the QED journal—whether it be, you know, being able to publish scholars who are thinking at the cutting edge of queer studies; or, those folks forging conversations between those who are coming from American studies and women, gender sexuality studies, Black studies, media studies, sociology, and you know, public health. We've been able to facilitate conversations with folks from various fields and areas. When I think about the special issue I edited on Moonlight special issue, that you were part of, we've been a part of several QED projects. But, I think most of the Moonlight issue. Because right in the moment that Moonlight is being celebrated, we're able to do this kind of five-year retrospective on the significance of this film not only to Black queer studies, but to the queer studies field broadly. Like, what do we learn about the queerness of blackness through this film. And so, folks like yourself and Terrance Wooten, Godfried Asante, and others, were able to kind of offer up different perspectives for thinking not only about the local, but also the transnational possibilities for the film and for kind of queer work and queer visual culture.And so for me, QED is a site that not only enables dynamic work by various types of scholars, but It's also a space that is highly focused. These forums allow us to be focused on the issues of now. Sometimes with scholarship, you know, it feels very ephemeral. Here today, going tomorrow. So, you know . . . I need to write this as soon as I can. And then you don't write it because it's like there's no journal that is really doing some kind of format that you could actually speak to immediately—like, the Me-Too moment or various kinds of historic moments (i.e., this disastrous 47th presidency).And I will say, I think we all want to do our work critically with great rigor and with peer review. But sometimes we have to do it fast. And in order to do it fast, that means it's going to be maybe less lengthy than the kind of like traditional general peer review. QED has proved that while there is much value in longer essays, a forum essay can still be a powerful punch.Marlon M. Bailey: When I was thinking about as you were as you were talking, I was thinking about QED as more egalitarian, an intellectually egalitarian space. Because, you know, it's no shade on some of our other queer and LGBT journals, no shade at all, because we need them. But I think some of us feel like many other journals are less inclusive, if you will. And part of it is that some of these more conventional journals have taken conventional approaches. They don't all do this all the time—because actually I've also published in a few of them, which was really great. But QED tends to have more of egalitarian opportunities for people with a range of intellectual scholarly backgrounds, to be able to think through current issues and have that such scholarship rigorously peer reviewed, as you pointed out.Jeffrey Q. McCune: And it's their brand, right? It's not just a one-off. Every issue, you know, is going to have a film and/or book review. It's going to have a forum. It's going to have its traditional set of articles. And there will always be plenty of different voices and perspectives.Marlon M. Bailey: And in this stage of both of our careers, we've done the traditional conventional publications in the traditional major peer review journals in our fields.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Whew. Yeah.Marlon M. Bailey: And so, when I was introduced to QED at a time, I was looking to publish in something different, in another kind of venue—where I was hoping to be able to talk about and think through and develop theory from film and other cultural objects, and experiences to reach a wider audience, an audience that is even beyond the conventional audience and conventional readers of other more traditional journals with similar foci.So, to your point, writing about Moonlight, for example, was an opportunity for me to, you know, to actually write about film. When you first asked me to write about it, I had to think about how I wanted to approach it, how I wanted to write and narrate my experience with the film. A venue like QED was what I was looking for. After watching Moonlight, I think I saw it about six times, I didn't want it to be too theoretical, I didn't want it to be opaque. I don't write like that anyway. I wanted it to be accessible, but I also wanted it to connect to other people who watched Moonlight, who are like me. I wanted to write for, and with, those who had these experiences with intimacy . . . and also had these experiences with intimacy deprivation. What Moonlight actually was able to do was, in my view, what all art is able to do: is to capture the full dimensionality of experience, the limits and possibilities of a particular aspect of social life.I think that QED really, at the time, and I would say still at the current time—was the best venue to be able to engage in that kind of writing, examination, theorization, and exploration.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Yeah. I love what you're saying here. I think one of the places that we really are agreeing and having synergy is that QED, like its title, on some levels is a space of experimentation. That there's a critical experimentation that's possible through this venue that has not been made possible in most journal venues and publications.Marlon M. Bailey: Exactly.Jeffrey Q. McCune: And because of that level of experimentation, especially where we are in our particular levels but even if you're not, right, we need spaces where we can go in lab like scientists and actually explore critical current ideas and test them out and see if they work or ponder new theorizations or new subjectivities or new theories, ideas, objects, artifacts. We got to play with some things and. . . .Marlon M. Bailey: And because I had never written about film, or I had never published any writing about a film as an ethnographer, I was able to include some of that in my ethnography. But I had never done a whole piece about a film, except maybe a review of a film.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Yeah. And QED allowed the venue for that kind of thinking through. And if I'm honest, I think that QED also jump-started some of the kind of beginnings of theories of disobedience for book project I am completing as well. The “queerness of blackness” was the beginning rumination for this project. And that, like whole notion of the Black|queer that I'm working through, in terms of the inseparable idea of the Black and the queer. Like when Black and queer are not separable, what do we do with it? There is a bit of a critical conundrum when you can't cohere blackness from queerness so easily.Queerness of Blackness was the first kind of iteration of that idea. And I didn't even know it then. Now that I look back—and people are quoting from that one small piece, probably more than like many articles that I've written. It was a sort of new thought, which now anchors the forthcoming Disobedient Reading: An Experiment in Seeing Black.And so . . . I think that kind of level of experimentation is not just experimentation, it's also critical exploration. I think that where you arrived—in terms of looking at Moonlight—also led you someplace with your new book, Black. Gay. Sex.Marlon M. Bailey: Yep.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Especially as you start thinking about intimacy, right?Marlon M. Bailey: Yeah, I was able to write about deep intimacy. And there's a concept that I'm still working with. And that's going to find its way and my book somewhere. Yeah, So QED has been—it sounds like for both of us—an experimental rigorous experimental space to work out to develop theoretical, empirical concepts. And that, I mean, is so necessary.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Absolutely. Yeah, this is. . . .Marlon M. Bailey: For field formation.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Absolutely.Marlon M. Bailey: As the co-editors of the New Sexual Worlds Series.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Book Series, with University of California Press!Marlon M. Bailey: We are interested in field formation in our book series, but of course we only occupy one site of field formation. We need journals like QED to be another site of field formation. To allow for scholars, writers, artists, and activists to put in critical conversation to experiment, to ideate. But also present research and present analysis of cultural objects. And that's also the way that an interdisciplinary field formation actually emerges, right?So . . . QED allowed for me as an ethnographer who primarily analyzes empirical data to also treat cultural objects like films as a form of empirical data. For someone who's analyzing human subjects and practices, it's important for me also as an interdisciplinary scholar to develop the skills to be able to do an analysis of films.Jeffrey Q. McCune: Yeah, this is so good. And I think we all have benefited from the opportunity to explore other texts, methodologies, and theories—in a way that is embraced, celebrated, and welcomed. I want to say really quickly that one of the things that is apparent in our conversation is how the design of QED is itself special. The QED design that Chuck and Tom have come up with, in terms of the formatting of the actual journal itself in terms of the format and structure, as well as the design that actually invites interdisciplinary scholars from various parts of queer studies, various worlds of queer studies, intellectual worlds to come into the conversation.And what that has forged for us is a real rich space to help us to help do the kind of cutting-edge field formation that you were talking about, right? How is it that we can change the trajectory of queer studies if we are not actually creating publications and journals that actually ask new questions and ask us to engage new voices and ask us to experiment with thought and object and analyses.Jeffrey Q. McCune: As we have been thinking about QED and its design for this decade, what might we say about the future of QED, now that it's had this decade of impact and influence?Marlon M. Bailey: I love that question. Because . . . we must protect, develop, nurture, and foster our intellectual spaces and venues where we can critically analyze our current conditions. But also include examinations and conversations about, with, and through cultural objects humanistic objects, and humanistic practices that help us imagine something different.We also need radically interdisciplinary spaces, intellectual spaces and publishing venues. Radically interdisciplinary journals, which are rigorous and peer reviewed. It is the radical interdisciplinarity that matters. And when I say radical interdisciplinarity, I don't mean simply mixing social science with humanities. I mean a radical configuration of methods and methodologies, theories and epistemologies, all mobilized in order to answer or address very complicated questions, whether it be a research question or research questions, whether it be knowledge questions or policy questions. So that's also what I mean about radical interdisciplinary and that we need a venue. We need to continue and to have QED grow even more to be at the forefront of our thinking about what are the real material conditions of queer life. What are the real material conditions and implications of . . . queer worldmaking as practice and as praxis.So, the other way that QED can fill in and can provide an important space . . . is for Trans Studies scholarship, so that GLQ and TSQ are not the only venues. They are very important venues, but they be the only venues which folks go for this interdisciplinary approach to Trans We need QED to develop, and scholarship because scholarship is in our current academic and people and scholarship are being Q. McCune: M. Bailey: and some of our are not and this really important scholarship that has made to queer studies. And so, I think that it's really important for QED to be radical in that way and to, you know, along with other journals and other venues, to to the to create a venue for our scholars and those who are working on and scholarship to Q. McCune: Absolutely. I mean, you know, I always say that QED has been the place where go to do interdisciplinary That so many people who are . . . in kinds of see QED as the venue to do rich interdisciplinary work at the cutting right? The work that them beyond what they might see as their traditional journal me do something different here. And so, I think you answer the with you that QED in its future has to be one of those places of LGBT studies. Queer studies with a right? know, you know, the has to really be in the way that might have it in the be not only about and But to be about and gender folks and subjects as well so that Queer Studies can really do the work to against of of from gender and sexuality. Because so we have not heard this or any come academic journals and spaces of knowledge We will never need to of them queer studies because they don't even know they M. Bailey: They don't even know of Q. McCune: They don't know that they So, while we are the and not us us and us the work of those scholars for critical studies of studies, right? kinds of studies are being in the but in this continue to And so for me, QED has the opportunity to be an intellectual and M. Bailey: Yep.Jeffrey Q. McCune: terms of doing more and more cutting-edge That But what I want to say is that as I this it is not to that I think there is any to this I am simply more of this kind of work is in this political To much is much is as the to means that if we're going to actually the for this kind of real rigorous scholarship, we're going to the to this rich and rigorous interdisciplinary studies And this for some of more folks on an even that can actually that folks who are actually in these conversations and from a interdisciplinary of scholars and M. Bailey: I with all of It is really important and journals like QED to be that space. And I know what I was going to say, we could see this moment for all of this our that is being and of us . . . by both and This is an opportunity for us to knowledge . . . because if knowledge was not so important and if it important it would not be For I think we must continue to publish and you to this this continue to kind of any kind of any kind of is going to have to be Q. McCune: Absolutely.Marlon M. Bailey: is going to have to we are going to have to the that is the of the history of this the of and the of people from These to not just but of are discourse in order to that we never and as if we don't and we But if we don't then we're not being their we're not I mean, it's a kind of Q. McCune: It's a M. Bailey: A of and a of So, it's really for us to as Black to into this We must which is to and to We must And the way that we it is that we continue to and we need QED to be that one of those spaces for us to continue to Q. McCune: it is our call to and publication to create new for us to the to and to as I QED is a which for the decade has been in space to powerful interdisciplinary This must continue especially in such a time as And as we say, even beyond the political moment . . . as we know these historic of are on We must be be and be QED is one for the of our to our worldmaking which is always to these of and I

Field (mathematics · Perspective (graphical · Publishing · Queer · Queer theory · Temporality · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism