Queer Literacies: Queer Objects,Disorientation,and Sponsors of Literacy

Abstract

Since the 1990s, there have been increasing calls to “queer” curricula in order to challenge gender and sexuality norms. In this article, I develop a model of queer literacies that understands queer to encompass anti-normative ways of being and recognizes the agentic potential of queer objects to disorient individuals and spaces. I challenge educators to become sponsors of queer literacies in order to disrupt a range of normative ideologies and open up future possibilities in which difference is acknowledged and accepted. I conclude the article by illustrating how a queer object, Shaun Tan's picture book Cicada (2018), might be read using a queer literacies approach to promote critical literacy, social justice, and well-being.

If we are invested in working with students to develop a critical understanding of their places—and their possibilities—in the world, then we must consider issues of sexuality as central to the development of contemporary literacy (Alexander, 2008, p. 5).

It should come as no surprise that the concept of queer literacies is not mentioned in any national or state-sanctioned curriculum. In large part, this is because queer literacies is a relatively new concept, first appearing in educational research around 2015 (see, e.g., Miller, 2015). Additionally, national and state-sanctioned curricula are arguably conservative, given that they function “to prepare children to participate in [their] customs, laws and culture” (Yates & Grumet, 2011, p. 12). That said, curricula are not static; both social and political change establish new agendas for curricula (Osler & Starkey, 2005). Since the 1990s, for example, the increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) individuals and issues has seen calls to “queer the curriculum” (Letts & Sears, 1998) or to incorporate “queer pedagogies” (Britzman, 1995) in order to make visible, and thereby challenge, the inherent hetero- and cisnormativity of curricula. (“Heternormativity” refers to discourses and worldviews that assume heterosexuality is the norm and privilege this over other forms of sexual orientation. “Cisnormativity” refers to discourses and worldviews that assume cisgender is the norm and privilege this over other forms of gender identity.) Miller (2015, 2016), for example, has put forward a queer literacies framework that promotes (a)gender and (a)sexuality self-determination and justice by outlining ten principles and associated commitments that educators can make to expand gender and sexuality norms.

The need to redress normative practices related to gender and sexuality stems from the disproportionate number of LGBTIQ young people who experience poorer mental health outcomes and have higher risk of suicidal behaviors (Wilson & Cariola, 2020). The invisibility and exclusion of queer representation in a widely hetero- and cisnormative society and curriculum contribute to this in myriad and complex ways, including lack of positive role models, stigma, marginalization, and isolation (Wilson & Cariola, 2020). One way to redress this is for educators to include in their teaching practices texts that address experiences, themes, and issues related to diverse genders and sexualities, as others have already advocated (e.g., Martino & Cumming-Potvin, 2016; McGraw & van Leent, 2018). Doing so provides a means to reflect back to queer students validated representations of their lives (Blackburn & Buckley, 2005).

Queer literacies, as I put forward, seeks to expand on this 1) by recognizing that literacy objects shape individuals and spaces, and 2) by emphasizing the defamiliarizing potential of queer objects to disrupt normative ideologies by representing alternative times, spaces, and directions for additional and different orientations and reading practices. Queer literacies thus empowers young people to read critically and to promote acceptance and equality, expanding individuals’ awareness and understanding of difference. My queer literacies approach echoes the four dimensions of critical literacy that Lewison et al. (2002) identified: disrupting the commonplace, integrating multiple viewpoints, focusing on sociopolitical issues, and taking action and promoting social justice. Significantly, though, queer literacies acknowledges the agentic potential of queer objects to disorient readers and spaces, and my use of “literacies” in the plural acknowledges the diverse and complex ways in which queer objects can achieve this. I seek to extend the work of others who advocate for the use of queer literacy frameworks in the classroom to recognize, honor, and affirm LGBTIQ youth (Miller, 2015, 2016; van Leent & Mills, 2018) and to create queer counterpublic classrooms (Kjaran, 2016) by considering how educators might do so using queer literacy objects.

I use “queer” to refer to an anti-normative way of being related to affect, experience, and orientation. While I use LGBTIQ identities and associated calls to queer the curriculum as a starting point, and emphasize how a queer literacies approach can redress gender and sexuality normativities, I explore the potential of queer literacies to effect wider social change. Synthesizing Brandt and Clinton's (2002) concept of “literacy-in-action” with Ahmed's (2006) queer phenomenology, I first argue that queer literacy objects have the potential to disorient individuals and spaces, opening up future possibilities in which difference is acknowledged and accepted. I then challenge educators to see themselves as sponsors of queer literacies who can promote such disorienting moves within their classrooms. Finally, I illustrate how a queer object, Shaun Tan's Cicada (2018), might be read using a queer literacies lens to promote critical literacy, social justice, and well-being. In doing so, I take up Alexander’s (2008) proposition to “consider issues of sexuality as central to the development of contemporary literacy” to ensure all students “develop a critical understanding of their places [and the places of others]” in society (p. 5).

Queer Literacy Objects in Action

While a component of queer literacies is the way in which individuals mobilize literate practices in relation to queer texts, or to read a text with a queer lens, what is also fundamental to a queer literacies approach is the consideration of the agentic properties of literacy objects. As with all literacy objects, there exists a reciprocal dynamic between individuals and queer literacy objects, and an individual's subject position both mediates and is mediated by the various queer texts with which they engage. Brandt and Clinton’s (2002) concept of literacy-in-action reminds us that literacy objects are active mediators in meaning-making. They argue that literacy is transcontextualized and transcontextualizing: Literacy objects imbue, resist, and recraft meaning not only in local contexts but also through global connections because of their material and digital properties.

Queer literacy objects are those that have the potential to disrupt normative discoursal spaces and to disorient an individual's sense of self and belonging. Ahmed’s (2006) explication of a queer phenomenology, and how queer objects disorient individuals, helps us to understand not only the reciprocal semantic relationship between individuals and objects, but also the potential of queer literacies to be mobilized to effect social change and support well-being. This is because both phenomenology and literacy are material practices that shape individual subjectivity. Phenomenology, Ahmed (2006) argued, “emphasizes the importance of lived experience, the intentionality of consciousness, the significance of nearness or what is ready-to-hand, and the role of repeated and habitual actions in shaping bodies and worlds” (p. 2). These aspects of phenomenology are also true of literacy as it is an embodied experience in which individuals consciously make meaning of literacy objects and, in doing so, develop, shape, and revise their worldviews (Lewis & del Valle, 2009).

Of particular interest to Ahmed (2006) is how our contact with queer objects can “disturb the order of things” (p. 161) by bringing into proximity things—people, objects, ideas—that usually do not meet within normative discourses and practices. Such encounters “unsettle[] that line that divides spaces as worlds, thereby creating other kinds of connections where unexpected things can happen” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 169). Queer literacy objects achieve more than simply representing anti-normative ways of being; they make transformation possible through the disorientation they engender, whether of individuals or spaces. The new and potential meanings formed by our interactions with queer literacy objects are not limited to their content, but extend to the recognized (and shared) social, cultural, or political function of literacy objects and the way in which they mediate our behavior. Due to their out-of-placeness, our engagement with queer literacy objects necessarily misaligns us from normative discourses, and so has the potential to disrupt and reshape shared cultural habits, thoughts, and beliefs. In this way, queer objects facilitate a form of “reparative reading” (Sedgwick, 2003): The disorientation they establish opens up the possibility of alternative outcomes, ways of understanding, and things to understand.

Educators as Sponsors of Queer Literacies

Educators have the capacity to disorient the social space of their classrooms, making visible queer objects and encouraging students to engage with them in particular ways in order to redress exclusionary and repressive discourses. Educators can thus be considered to be “sponsors of literacy” in the sense that Brandt and Clinton (2002) outlined. This is because “access to literacy has always required assistance, permission, sanction, or coercion by more powerful others or, at least, contact with existing ‘grooves’ of communication” (Brandt & Clinton, 2002, p. 349). Thought of in this way, our access to literacy is inherently political, as sponsors of literacy “enable or induce literacy and gain advantage by it in some way” (Brandt & Clinton, 2002, p. 349; emphasis added). Queer literacies is no less political. By incorporating queer objects into their pedagogical practices, educators can disorient the normative spaces of the classroom and expose their students to that which often goes unseen. Doing so has the potential to expand young people's awareness, understanding, and acceptance of difference. The advantage gained is a more equitable and just culture.

Again, Ahmed's queer phenomenology provides an understanding of the pivotal role educators play by introducing queer literacy objects to learners. While queer objects exist, it is only when they come within reach—physically, mentally, emotionally—that they can disorient individuals and spaces. All objects have a defining contour, what Ahmed termed a “bodily horizon.” The bodily horizon is not physical, although that can form a part of it, but is also ideological and phenomenological:

The bodily horizon shows what bodies can reach toward by establishing a line beyond which they cannot reach; the horizon marks the edge of what can be reached by the body. The body becomes present as a body, with surfaces and boundaries, in showing the “limits” of what it can do. (Ahmed, 2006, p. 55)

As sponsors of queer literacies, educators have the potential to introduce to young people queer objects that disrupt and disturb their bodily horizons, encouraging them to see new alternatives and understandings that acknowledge, value, and accept difference.

It is not only people, though, that are oriented. Ahmed (2006) suggested that spaces are also oriented as they bring into view some objects and not others, thereby promoting habitual and repeated tendencies. Writing specifically about heterosexuality, Ahmed argued it is “not then simply an orientation toward others, it is also something that we are oriented around, even if it disappears from view” (p. 90). She continued,

It is not that the heterosexual subject has to turn away from queer objects in accepting heterosexuality as a parental gift: compulsory heterosexuality makes such a turning away unnecessary (although becoming straight can be lived as a “turning away”). Queer objects, which do not allow the subject to approximate the form of the heterosexual couple, may not even get near enough to “come into view” as possible objects to be directed towards.… The body acts upon what is nearby or at hand, and then gets shaped by its directions toward such objects, which keeps other objects beyond the bodily horizon of the straight subject. (pp. 90–91)

The pervasive hetero- and cisnormativity of school curricula means that queer objects—whether in relation to sexuality or gender, or both—are often excluded from the classroom, and therefore students are unable to become disoriented to consider alternative ways of being, maintaining the invisibility of non-normative genders and sexualities. Similarly, we are oriented around whiteness (see Ahmed, 2006, ch. 3) and, I would argue, other normative ways of being, including those related to ethnicity, ability, and class, among others. As sponsors of queer literacies, educators play a pivotal role in disrupting normative discourses and practices through the inclusion of queer objects in the classroom. By making seen what is often invisible, the use of queer literacy objects enable educators to draw attention to the inherent ideologies and power dynamics of texts, literacy practices and societal norms that maintain the oppression of minority individuals, and promote new possibilities, understandings, and ways of being.

There is, thus, a futurity to queer literacies. While queer objects cause disruptions in the present moment, they also necessarily direct us toward new directions and departures. Our engagement with queer objects in the present influences our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors in the future; they are “effects of what we tend toward, where the ‘toward’ marks a space and time that is almost, but not quite, available in the present” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 20). Thus, queer literacies can also be considered an example of Muñoz’s (2009) “queer critical hopefulness,” as it offers a response to the negativity and “impoverished” temporality of the present in order to foster “a desire for another way of being both in the world and in time” (p. 96), one that points toward future societal practices that recognize, accommodate, and welcome difference. It also can be considered to conform to Muñoz’s (1999) theory of disidentification, as queer literacies empower the minority subject to “negotiate a phobic majoritarian public sphere that continually elides or punishes the existence of subjects who do not conform to the phantasm of normative citizenship” (p. 4). By supporting young people to become critically aware of systems that maintain inequality, sponsors of queer literacies can empower young people to resist and, hopefully, transform their own social systems to become more inclusive and equitable.

Introducing the Queer Object: Shaun Tan's Cicada

Throughout this article, I have used “queer” to refer to anti-normative ways of being, although I have largely aligned this to non-normative sexualities and genders. In this section, I explore the potential of queer objects to disrupt a range of dominant ideologies and open up alternative ways of understanding and being that invite critical reflection about difference. I am aware of various critiques of queer studies that promote a universal understanding of the queer subject that do not take into account intersectional identities, particularly in relation to whiteness (see, e.g., Bérubé, 2010; Dhairyam, 1994; Johnson, 2001) and class (see, e.g., Johnson, 2001; Taylor, 2018). As such, I acknowledge that because of my own subject position as an upper-middle-class, gay, able-bodied, cis-gendered, white male, I may be at risk of inadvertently reproducing a universal understanding of “queer” that elides the range of intersectional identities that fracture queer experiences, and do not here suggest that all embodied experiences can be reduced to that of a uniform queer subject. Nevertheless, I follow the lead of intersectional scholars who see the potential of bringing queer theory into conversation with a range of other theoretical appoaches to understand the material conditions and lived experiences of those with intersectional identities (see, e.g., Barnard, 2004; McRuer, 2006). In doing so, I explore how Shaun Tan's picture book Cicada (2018) might function as a queer literacy object to be used by educators as sponsors of queer literacies to enable young people to work within and against dominant ideologies in relation to gender and ethnicity.

A literal reading that incorporates both the written and visual elements of Cicada might be:

A cicada has lived and worked as a data entry clerk for seventeen years in a tall building. It has not been treated fairly by its coworkers, and has been bullied and beaten. Upon its retirement, it walks to the top of the building, metamorphosizes to grow wings, and joins a swarm of cicadas flying back to a forest.

Yet, Cicada comprises queer elements, and a queer literacies approach expands the meaning of the text to raise awareness of oppressive power dynamics, thereby promoting readers’ empathy and understanding. Moreover, because of Tan's international acclaim and the multimodal elements of the picture book format, Cicada is likely to have both a local (Australian) and global circulation, and thus is arguably both transcontextualizing and transcontextualized. While there are multiple ways in which Tan's queer literacy object disrupts mainstream and accepted behaviors, I put forward here a queer reading of the picture book that focuses on dehumanization and transformation to demonstrate how a queer literacies approach might enable the text to be used to resist dominant discourses and promote new ways of being and understanding in relation to transgender and migrant experiences.

From the beginning, the text is disorientating. It is not clear who the cicada is, where it came from, or why it has remained in the office for seventeen years. This disorienting effect is magnified by the grammar of the written text, which includes incorrectly conjugated verbs and fragmented sentences, and the visual imagery, which features faceless humans whose heads are often cropped off by the borders of the page. The cicada with its green skin, on the other hand, stands in contrast to the grayscale tones of the settings and human figures. Consequently, the humans are dehumanized, while the visual and written elements of the narrative promote reader identification with the cicada. In doing so, the text functions as a queer object as it brings the unseen into view and, by doing so, disorients the reader such that they are aligned with the nonhuman and encouraged to see the world in different ways.

One of the ways in which the cicada may be read is as a transgendered figure. The written text is devoid of personal pronouns, and the cicada is nongendered (although it does wear a men's business suit). The five ultimate double-page spreads of the book depict the cicada's transformation from a green-skinned terrestrial insect clothed in a business suit to a bright-orange winged cicada devoid of clothing that joins a community of flying cicadas to return to a forest. The text preceding this transformation, and the first double-page spread, though, is ominous and alludes to suicide: It is “time to say goodbye” (Tan, 2018), and the cicada climbs the stairwell to stand on the building's edge, looking out to emptiness. As mentioned above, LGBTIQ youth experience higher rates of suicidal ideation and mental health issues, and the foreboding imagery goes some way to acknowledge this, but also opens up new possibilities for transgender and non-gender-conforming individuals. Not only does the cicada metamorphosize and fly away, it finds community in which all cicadas “sometimes think about human. Can't stop laughing” (Tan, 2018). It is uncertain whether the cicadas are laughing at the humans who are stuck in a normative and destructive world, or laughing because they are finally free to be themselves. Opening up the possibilities of the text, perhaps it is both. Educators might use this queer literacy object to encourage young people to develop new understandings of gender and acceptance, and thus to consider how to redress inequality that transgender and non-gender-conforming individuals experience such that they are accepted and valued as members of our society.

Another way the cicada may be read is as a newly arrived immigrant to an Anglophone country. As mentioned above, the written text contains incorrect grammar and verb conjugations, which reflect some of the grammatical challenges individuals who are learning English as an additional language or dialect experience when required to speak Standard English. Further, the cicada's lived experience is reminiscent of those of migrant workers (see, e.g., Wilkinson, 2012). While the cicada works as a data entry clerk, it is seemingly exploited by its employers: Not only does the cicada work longer than its human coworkers, it is not clear if it is paid appropriately, as it cannot afford rent and lives in the office wallspace. Thus, not only is the cicada nonhuman, it is also a nonperson in terms of citizenship status because of ontological omissions: It lacks rational speech and working rights, two elements that are afforded to citizen subjects. By bringing to the fore the mistreatment of migrants—whether non- or new citizens—the text defamiliarizes the belonging citizen subjects experience. Thus, Tan's picture book could also be used by educators to challenge dehumanizing perceptions of migrants and associated oppressive material conditions in order to foster compassion for non- and new citizens, as well as promoting equality.

Conclusion

As my reading of Tan's Cicada demonstrates, queer literacies is not about entertaining a singular reading of a text, or determining a singular meaning from a text. Rather, queer literacies is about disorienting individuals and spaces to open up new potentials and understandings. As Ahmed (2006) observed:

Queer is not available as a line that we can follow, and if we took such a line, we would perform a certain injustice to those queers whose lives are lived for different points. For me, the important task is not so much finding a queer line but asking what our orientation toward queer moments of deviation will be. (p. 179)

The inclusion of queer literacies as a pedagogical practice would see educators purposefully use queer objects to disorient individuals and spaces, which allows young people to generate new understandings about themselves and others, and encourages them to ask questions about ourselves and our society. Such questions not only have the potential to expose hegemonic discourses that oppress or render invisible certain individuals, they also expand young people's awareness of difference and multiple ways of being. In doing so, queer literacies can establish new orientations for young people that make it possible for all to find a place—and possibility—in the world.