22 - Queer, Cosmopolitan

Summary

The secular eighteenth century makes a nation-state, promulgated through literacy and print, a substitute for a shared religious identity. Both separately and combined, queerness and cosmopolitanism combat the assumed naturalness of nation and heterosexuality and expose them as constructs and nonidentities. By virtue of their shared stubbornness, the two concepts pose a challenge to the twin fictions of nationhood and heteronormativity. The shapes that family, desire, and gender take in world diasporas undermine the perceived normalcy of procreative heterosexuality, which, in turn, has served as the foundation and guardian of the nation-state. Like queer cosmopolitanism of years past, queer diaspora studies enters into an adversarial relationship with nationalism and is vocally resistant to imperialism. The theoretical and literary output by the queers of color introduces experiences of world travelers, who, through multiple cultural and political affiliations and complexity of familial affinities, expand cosmopolitanism beyond the "first world".