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Todd's Hammer (10 unread)

Gay Spaces, Gay Interaction, Gay Politics

Posted: June 27th, 2011, 12:35am EDT by Todd

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Earlier today I shared a link with some friends to a blog about a man’s frustration with the presence of so many straight women at Pride events here in San Francisco over the weekend, and sparked quite an argument / discussion. I have spoken about the issue of the necessity of queer spaces for ongoing [...]
Big News & a Note about Summer 2011

Posted: May 31st, 2011, 9:35am EDT by Todd

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Some big news: I received word on Friday that I was granted tenure and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. So I’m officially no longer on the tenure track. I’ve been working toward this for so long, I’m not really sure how I feel about it. Relief, surely. Like many people on the tenure [...]
On Gay Male Subjectivity: A “Conversation” with David Halperin

Posted: March 29th, 2011, 11:21am EDT by Todd

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This is a somewhat unpolished, meandering piece that comes out of some serious thinking I’ve been doing lately about the implications of my own research for current gay male culture and queer politics generally. Apologies for the disjointed and wandering nature of my writing here; I hope that the ideas come through despite that. When [...]
Stimulating Nuggets from Midwestern (and other) Sociologists

Posted: March 26th, 2011, 11:05am EDT by Todd

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It has been a few years since I have been able to attend an academic conference. They have many social and cultural functions, among them mini-vacation from teaching, party and drinking, professional networking, etc. For me this month, having attended two conferences and having presented two pieces of my current research on ex-mormons, it has [...]
Approaching Difficult Texts (For Students)

Posted: January 14th, 2011, 2:41pm EST by Todd

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I have come up against students recently who are resisting my assigned readings on the grounds that they are “too difficult”. This has been an increasing problem over the past few years, but it’s especially noticeable with texts that I have been assigning for several years, and which have received positive student feedback in the [...]
No Redemption in “Angels in America” (Guest Post)

Posted: August 30th, 2010, 2:38pm EDT by Todd

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In a conversation with some friends last week about the brilliance and shortcomings of Kushner’s play cycle Angels in America, a friend of mine, Caroline Udall, wrote this piercing critique of Kushner’s choice to redeem every character except the gay Mormon. Her comment is in medias rex, as it were, but I think it stands [...]
On the Uses of History

Posted: June 14th, 2010, 1:40am EDT by Todd

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While I was thinking out loud about history, lately, and its role in creating meaning (not in a cheesy self-help way, but in the social-psychological or symbolic interactionist sense of Meaning (i.e., G.H. Mead or John Dewey)), a friend suggested to me that feeling connected to the past can be mere nostalgia or sentimentalism. I’m [...]
Out of Step with Queer

Posted: May 14th, 2010, 9:34am EDT by Todd

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An acquaintance of mine asked me this morning to explain what I meant in my profile by being “out of step with the queer left.” It’s a good question, but a complex one that I still struggle with and am not sure about. I find that I both love queer theory and am frustrated by [...]
Naturalistic Theory of Culture

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 10:55am EST by Todd

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I’m constantly working on explaining the naturalistic theory of culture to my students. I have posted on this several times in the past and am still working it out. I want my students to understand both that culture is plastic and context dependent, and that culture is also always embodied and emergent from interaction. My [...]
“The Homosexuals” (CBS, 1967)

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 8:29am EST by Todd

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In my book The Meaning of Gay, currently in press (sorry for the shameless plug), I briefly treated the gay male response to this documentary in a section on the media and homosexuality. I had tried several ways to find and watch the documentary in its entirety, but had never been able to find it [...]