Thinking the future otherwise: Queer futures and queer utopias

Abstract

Discussions within queer time studies often hinge upon a simplistic binary division between Lee Edelman's anti-futurism and José Esteban Muñoz's queer utopianism. This article aims to reframe this discourse, acknowledging its limitations and proposing alternative approaches to conceptualizing the future through a queer lens. Beginning with a brief overview of both the queer anti-social thesis and future-oriented utopias, this article explores alternative, critical frameworks for future-making praxis such as Jussi Parikka's ‘counter-futuring’ and Bahar Noorizadeh's ‘weird-futuring’. Leveraging these frameworks and Muñoz's suggestion to investigate novel queer epistemologies within queer art, the article then examines Zach Blas’ ‘xeno-telos’ and micha cárdenas’ ‘queer prototyping’, as paradigmatic examples of queer future-making beyond the referred dichotomy. In conclusion, this article argues for a diversification of queer time/future politics, advocating for partial, precarious and open-ended approaches to future-oriented thinking; approaches that embrace the unknown, trial and error and unexpected possibilities, thus fostering, new, diversified and radically engaged queer temporal politics.