Divas of the Night: Queer activism in Lebanese performing arts

Identifier:  TDX:4276

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX4276

Authors:  Kassir, Abed Al Wahab

Abstract:
My research addresses queer activism through contemporary performing arts in Lebanon. I follow the definition of Karl Schoonover and Rosalind Galt of queer art as art that invites troubles (Schoonover and Galt, 2016). I trace the troubles or the “queer mess” that the artists create subvert the social norms and the heteronormative power, while opening spaces for queer transformational work to begin. Queer here is used more as a political tactic and less as an identity politics. Through the methods of multimodal analysis, and inspired by theories from queer, masculinities, performing arts, and post-colonial studies, and black feminists and queers of color critiques, I study three different forms of performing arts; Instagram illustration accounts, drag queen shows, and queer movies. The central question of this study is: how does queer performing arts act as a site of subversion for hetero-normative power? I argue that the artistic productions project an anti-assimilation and anti-respectability politics that subverts the pillars of normative patriarchal power, mainly sectarianism, hegemonic masculinity, the binary understanding of gender, family relations, and public morals.