Queering memory: Toward re-membering otherwise

Abstract

This editorial introduction provides a theoretical framework for analyzing relationships between gender, sexuality, and memory. Using the concept of queering memory, the special issue proposes queering memory as a practice of innovative and generative history-making that has the capacity to reorder time and memory. The contributions collected in this special issue take up the notions of “queer” and “queering” in their multiple forms, not only in reference to gender and sexuality but also as disordered, non-normative, and subversive potentialities that unsettle power relations. Building on this approach, the contributions engage with art, archives, museums, television, performance, philosophy, and cultural artifacts to explore how queering memory can serve as a strategy for building alternative narratives that impact which memories are privileged and which are hidden or silenced.