...Since the early 2000s, the phenomenon of the “down low”—black men who have sex with men as well as women and do not identify as gay, queer, or bisexual—has exploded in news media and popular culture, from the Oprah Winfrey Show to R & B singer R. Kelly’s hip hopera...

...This book investigates the down low—a phenomenon in which black men engage in sex with both men and women even though they do not identify as gay, queer, or bisexual—and its emergence in the early twenty-first century. It begins with a simple premise: down low might actually characterize black...

...This chapter examines how the glass closet and ignorance can function in tandem with one another in relation to the down low—a phenomenon in which black men engage in sex with both men and women even though they do not identify as gay, queer, or bisexual—by offering a close reading of R. Kelly’s...

...Universalism is the political thing that makes particulars fail to cohere; universalism as the idea that spurs longing across borders; universalism as the notion that allows intellectual ferment: these are the domains of the queer. The universalism of noncohering particulars is queer, then, because...

...This chapter presents different accounts of queerness in Minnesota after the U.S. Army established Fort Snelling near the Falls of St. Anthony, one of which is the sexuality of native “berdache”—men who make themselves women. Native Americans accorded berdaches a high status, along with men who...

...This chapter focuses on how race and queer thinking intersected in the critical recycling of folklórica and the cuplé aesthetics during the catastrophic changes of Spain’s transition to democracy, particularly the moment of 1978. It examines the confluence of race and queerness by exploring...

...This introductory chapter discusses the queerness of Henry James’s writing style. Most of his work represents the marginalized sex. However, the queerness in his writing can be seen in its elusive and multivalent effects of syntax, figure, voice, and tone in challenging the presumption that desire...

...This book begins with the proposition that to read Henry James—particularly the late texts—is to confront the queer potential of style and the traces it leaves on the literary life. In contrast to other recent analyses, this book asserts that James’s queerness is to be found neither...

...This chapter examines a series of discursive events that produce a shared grammar for a national viewing public to accept the down low—a phenomenon in which black men engage in sex with both men and women even though they do not identify as gay, queer, or bisexual— as a compelling narrative...