Queer Contemporary Art of Southwest Asia North Africa

New perspectives on queer visual culture in the SWANA region.

With contributions from scholars and artists, this volume demonstrates that queer visual culture in Southwest Asia and the North Africa region is entering an era of exciting growth in its versatility and consciousness. The volume focuses on artworks produced in the contemporary era while recognizing historical and contextual connections to Islamic art and culture within localities and regions from the pre-modern and modern eras.
 

Presents new perspectives on queer visual culture in the Southwest Asia North Africa region from queer artists as well as scholars who work on queer themes. With contributions from both scholars and artists, this volume demonstrates that queer visual culture in the SWANA region is not only extant, but is also entering an era of exciting growth in terms of its versatility and consciousness. The volume focuses on artworks produced in the contemporary era while recognizing historical and contextual connections to Islamic art and culture withinlocalities and regions from the pre-modern and modern eras. By framing this volume as unambiguously located within queer studies, the editors challenge existing literature that merely includes some examples of queer studies or queer representation, but does not necessarily use queer studies as a lens through which to engage with visual culture and/or with the SWANA region. Through four interrelated sections - Gender and Normativity, Trans* Articulations, Intersectional Sexuality, and Queer SWANA - this volume probes several previously unexplored academic areas, namely the intersections of queer studies with other fields. Part of the Critical Studies in Architecture of the Middle East series.