Meg Wesling
Biographic Data
| ID | 203137 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Meg Wesling |
| GIVEN NAMES | Meg |
| FAMILY NAME | Wesling |
| SIGNATURE | WESLING M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8850-6193 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 36 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Cambridge Companion to American Literature and Empire
The story of American literature and empire goes beyond the broad historical periodization of empire to reimagine that history. The central terms American and literature have always been tied up in US empire as well as other empires in the Americas. The word 'America,' itself the product of inter-imperial intellectual rivalry, claims the name of an entire hemisphere for one country therein. To understand the full history of American literature an…
Radical Feminisms in the U.S. and France
This essay traces the movements of radical feminist work between the U.S. and France, arguing that the long dialogue between American gender studies and French Feminisms has reached a new and extremely important point with the emergence of the #BalanceTonPorc, #MeToo, and the rise of the far Right in since 2016. More specifically, I analyze the transatlantic exchange of radical feminist theoretical work with two specific contexts in mind. The fir…
On refusing to become, or to remain, heterosexual
This essay pushes back against mainstream queer and feminist discourses that assume an ontological distinction between lesbians and straight women. This distinction is a commonplace feature of a spate of recent books and films produced and marketed to mainstream feminist audiences. This idea of sexuality as ontology is key to the resurgence of biological determinism that has defined LGBT political advocacy in the twenty-first century. This biolog…
"Gay Genes" and the Contested Origins of Same-Sex Desire
This essay interrogates the increasingly widespread popularity of biological explanations for gay and lesbian identity, to consider what it means for queer and feminist politics when biological etiology is held up as the central facet of a progressive agenda. It asks how might we explain the fact that, despite the robust critique of biologization in feminist scholarship, this thinking has become even more pervasive in recent years. Tracing how th…
Sexuality and statelessness
This article reads James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room as a queer diasporic novel. Drawing on feminist work on diaspora and empire, it argues that Baldwin’s exploration of the damaging capacity of homophobia demonstrates its central role in maintaining white supremacy and supporting US nation-building and French imperialism. The narrative unreliability of the protagonist, David, manifests the internal contradictions of the larger state project which …
The Erotics of a Livable Life
This essay is about the life-making place of desire in queer life. It asks what kinds of lives are made livable through the articulation of desire, and how the structures of feeling that we recognize as queer desire can be written or erased across the historical record
The Unequal Promise of Marriage Equality
What kind of right is the right to marry? "The Unequal Promise of Marriage Equality" examines the coincident decisions of Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder , which invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, and United States v. Windsor , which declared unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act and opened the door to federal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States. In considering these decisions, I argue against popular …
Epistemologies of Empire
This essay responds to the question posed in Matt Jacobson's presidential address, "what is the view of empire from where we are now standing?" It considers this question by posing two more: how is the university a site for the neoliberalization of empire, and how are our very categories of knowledge implicated in the foundations of US Empire? I argue, finally, that the conditions of neoliberalism are evidenced not only in the privatization of ri…
Queer Value
This essay addresses how an interrogation of the concept of value can make room for a materialist reading of sexuality that goes beyond the identifiably "queer" to address the historical specificity of capital's investment in formations of sexual identity. The production of sexuality, through which unpredictable constellations of desire, knowledge, and practice become concretized into limited models of sexual identity, is bound up in the way capi…
Neocolonialism, queer kinship, and diaspora
This essay asks how configurations of family and kinship are rendered particularly queer in the context of diaspora, both for those who are part of the diaspora and for those left behind. It argues that the question of queer diaspora must develop a critical language for resisting the romance of family that subtends the liberal humanist paradigms of citizenship and activism; more specifically, it aims to expand the notion of queer diaspora beyond …
Why Queer Diaspora
Why Queer Diaspora?' intervenes at the intersection of queer theory and diaspora studies to ask how the conditions of geographical mobility produce new experiences and understandings of sexuality and gender identity. More particularly, this essay argues against a prevalent critical slippage between queer and diaspora, through which the queer is read as a mobile category that, like diaspora, disrupts the stability of fixed identity categories and …
Colonial Education and the Politics of Knowledge in Carlos Bulosan's America Is in the Heart
Journal Article Colonial Education and the Politics of Knowledge in Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart Get access Meg Wesling Meg Wesling University of California, San Diego Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar MELUS, Volume 32, Issue 2, June 2007, Pages 55–77, https://doi.org/10.1093/melus/32.2.55 Published: 01 June 2007
The Opacity of Everyday Life
Research Article| March 01 2006 The Opacity of Everyday Life: Segregation and the Iconicity of Uplift in The Street Meg Wesling Meg Wesling Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Literature (2006) 78 (1): 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-78-1-117 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permi…
Queer Value
This essay addresses how an interrogation of the concept of value can make room for a materialist reading of sexuality that goes beyond the identifiably "queer" to address the historical specificity of capital's investment in formations of sexual identity. The production of sexuality, through which unpredictable constellations of desire, knowledge, and practice become concretized into limited models of sexual identity, is bound up in the way capi…
Why Queer Diaspora
Why Queer Diaspora?' intervenes at the intersection of queer theory and diaspora studies to ask how the conditions of geographical mobility produce new experiences and understandings of sexuality and gender identity. More particularly, this essay argues against a prevalent critical slippage between queer and diaspora, through which the queer is read as a mobile category that, like diaspora, disrupts the stability of fixed identity categories and …
The Erotics of a Livable Life
This essay is about the life-making place of desire in queer life. It asks what kinds of lives are made livable through the articulation of desire, and how the structures of feeling that we recognize as queer desire can be written or erased across the historical record
The Opacity of Everyday Life
Research Article| March 01 2006 The Opacity of Everyday Life: Segregation and the Iconicity of Uplift in The Street Meg Wesling Meg Wesling Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Literature (2006) 78 (1): 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-78-1-117 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permi…
The Unequal Promise of Marriage Equality
What kind of right is the right to marry? "The Unequal Promise of Marriage Equality" examines the coincident decisions of Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder , which invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, and United States v. Windsor , which declared unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act and opened the door to federal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States. In considering these decisions, I argue against popular …
Epistemologies of Empire
This essay responds to the question posed in Matt Jacobson's presidential address, "what is the view of empire from where we are now standing?" It considers this question by posing two more: how is the university a site for the neoliberalization of empire, and how are our very categories of knowledge implicated in the foundations of US Empire? I argue, finally, that the conditions of neoliberalism are evidenced not only in the privatization of ri…
Colonial Education and the Politics of Knowledge in Carlos Bulosan's America Is in the Heart
Journal Article Colonial Education and the Politics of Knowledge in Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart Get access Meg Wesling Meg Wesling University of California, San Diego Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar MELUS, Volume 32, Issue 2, June 2007, Pages 55–77, https://doi.org/10.1093/melus/32.2.55 Published: 01 June 2007
The Opacity of Everyday Life
Research Article| March 01 2006 The Opacity of Everyday Life: Segregation and the Iconicity of Uplift in The Street Meg Wesling Meg Wesling Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Literature (2006) 78 (1): 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-78-1-117 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permi…
Colonial Education and the Politics of Knowledge in Carlos Bulosan's America Is in the Heart
Journal Article Colonial Education and the Politics of Knowledge in Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart Get access Meg Wesling Meg Wesling University of California, San Diego Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar MELUS, Volume 32, Issue 2, June 2007, Pages 55–77, https://doi.org/10.1093/melus/32.2.55 Published: 01 June 2007
Why Queer Diaspora
Why Queer Diaspora?' intervenes at the intersection of queer theory and diaspora studies to ask how the conditions of geographical mobility produce new experiences and understandings of sexuality and gender identity. More particularly, this essay argues against a prevalent critical slippage between queer and diaspora, through which the queer is read as a mobile category that, like diaspora, disrupts the stability of fixed identity categories and …
Neocolonialism, queer kinship, and diaspora
This essay asks how configurations of family and kinship are rendered particularly queer in the context of diaspora, both for those who are part of the diaspora and for those left behind. It argues that the question of queer diaspora must develop a critical language for resisting the romance of family that subtends the liberal humanist paradigms of citizenship and activism; more specifically, it aims to expand the notion of queer diaspora beyond …
Queer Value
This essay addresses how an interrogation of the concept of value can make room for a materialist reading of sexuality that goes beyond the identifiably "queer" to address the historical specificity of capital's investment in formations of sexual identity. The production of sexuality, through which unpredictable constellations of desire, knowledge, and practice become concretized into limited models of sexual identity, is bound up in the way capi…
Epistemologies of Empire
This essay responds to the question posed in Matt Jacobson's presidential address, "what is the view of empire from where we are now standing?" It considers this question by posing two more: how is the university a site for the neoliberalization of empire, and how are our very categories of knowledge implicated in the foundations of US Empire? I argue, finally, that the conditions of neoliberalism are evidenced not only in the privatization of ri…
The Unequal Promise of Marriage Equality
What kind of right is the right to marry? "The Unequal Promise of Marriage Equality" examines the coincident decisions of Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder , which invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, and United States v. Windsor , which declared unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act and opened the door to federal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States. In considering these decisions, I argue against popular …
The Erotics of a Livable Life
This essay is about the life-making place of desire in queer life. It asks what kinds of lives are made livable through the articulation of desire, and how the structures of feeling that we recognize as queer desire can be written or erased across the historical record
Sexuality and statelessness
This article reads James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room as a queer diasporic novel. Drawing on feminist work on diaspora and empire, it argues that Baldwin’s exploration of the damaging capacity of homophobia demonstrates its central role in maintaining white supremacy and supporting US nation-building and French imperialism. The narrative unreliability of the protagonist, David, manifests the internal contradictions of the larger state project which …
"Gay Genes" and the Contested Origins of Same-Sex Desire
This essay interrogates the increasingly widespread popularity of biological explanations for gay and lesbian identity, to consider what it means for queer and feminist politics when biological etiology is held up as the central facet of a progressive agenda. It asks how might we explain the fact that, despite the robust critique of biologization in feminist scholarship, this thinking has become even more pervasive in recent years. Tracing how th…
Radical Feminisms in the U.S. and France
This essay traces the movements of radical feminist work between the U.S. and France, arguing that the long dialogue between American gender studies and French Feminisms has reached a new and extremely important point with the emergence of the #BalanceTonPorc, #MeToo, and the rise of the far Right in since 2016. More specifically, I analyze the transatlantic exchange of radical feminist theoretical work with two specific contexts in mind. The fir…
On refusing to become, or to remain, heterosexual
This essay pushes back against mainstream queer and feminist discourses that assume an ontological distinction between lesbians and straight women. This distinction is a commonplace feature of a spate of recent books and films produced and marketed to mainstream feminist audiences. This idea of sexuality as ontology is key to the resurgence of biological determinism that has defined LGBT political advocacy in the twenty-first century. This biolog…
The Cambridge Companion to American Literature and Empire
The story of American literature and empire goes beyond the broad historical periodization of empire to reimagine that history. The central terms American and literature have always been tied up in US empire as well as other empires in the Americas. The word 'America,' itself the product of inter-imperial intellectual rivalry, claims the name of an entire hemisphere for one country therein. To understand the full history of American literature an…
Sociology (10 works) · Political science (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Queer (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Human sexuality (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Art (4 works)