As a mode of rejecting fixity, and standing apart from the normative, queer theory is something of an ironic mainstay in critical theory. Perhaps equally ironic is the way in which the classical tradition, and the ghost of the ancient Mediterranean, have been at the heart of this anti-tradition project since its inception. Nevertheless, the academic conversation has been a fruitful one, and over the past few decades the intersections of Classics and queer theory have certainly developed in a plethora of new directions – as amply demonstrated by the present volume.
Following a general introduction by the three editors, and a reflective chapter on the state of the field from the beginnings of queer theory by Ormand, this handbook is divided into five sections. Though queer theory and its application is endlessly diverse, these sections can certainly be seen to highlight some of the main directions of the field. Within them, however, the range of topics can feel disparate at times – one might argue that, in some ways, this is the point of deconstructionism and queer theory, but this line of thinking could quickly become recursive beyond use. Similarly, the editors’ introduction notes the huge potential for crossover in the volume, suggesting how each chapter could have found a home in a different section in order to create moments of synergy across the handbook as a whole – yet, true as this may be, the editors seem to give much less space in the introduction to explaining why they did choose the ordering that they settled on.
The size of the handbook and the diversity of the pieces perhaps give it more value as a volume to dip into depending on one's individual research interests and directions, rather than to read cover to cover. Taken in this way, each of the chapters will have merit and relevance for students, researchers and teachers who want to grasp the key questions and directions of queer theory within their particular subdiscipline. There is a synergy that can come from reading some chapters together, but in many ways that too will come to readers who dip in and follow their own train – again making the subgroups useful only to a point.
When the volume is read as a whole, maybe the most important takeaway is the unanswerability of what ‘queer’ means. Indeed, the editors comment in the general introduction that they deliberately did not prescribe an answer to this when soliciting chapters, encouraging the contributors to take up this question themselves. A number of them pick up this gauntlet to great effect, offering working definitions of the word, and the broader theoretical implications: some emphasise a sexuality-based focus, thinking about the relationship between Classics, queer theory and the history of sexuality (e.g. K. Mann and Ormand); this finds a parallel but also divergence in the definition of queer resting on non-(re)productivity and its alternatives (T. Sapsford and M. Devecka); still others take an expansive approach to queer as imagining otherwise for marginalised and abject(ed) perspectives (P. Rankine and Z. Herz). Though these directions may at times seem contradictory, bringing them into direct conversation with each other creates a handbook reflecting the fluid and expansive possibilities of queer.
The first of the main sections, ‘Queer Subjectivities’, assembles studies representing one of the most important – and one of the broadest – themes in queer Classics. Identity and subjectivity form, in many ways, a backbone of queer research, and particularly queer historical research, as we seek ways to understand ancient lives and experiences without simply overwriting them with our own. In terms of their own subjectivity as being part of a handbook, the chapters in this section provide readers with a range of ways to apply theory to ancient material. Primarily case-study-based, they each pair source and methodology to demonstrate what queer theory can do for Classics. The chapters by Rankine and L. Åshede both serve as introductions to utilising posthumanism, whilst M. Mueller and F. Spiegel perform close readings of their chosen texts influenced by the writings of Jack Halberstam. Mann and P.A. Miller, alongside their specific case studies, also provide good introductions to the historiography of sexuality, specifically within and around the porous definitions of ‘queer’; conversely, G.M. Chesi demonstrates that very porousness of ‘queer’ as a way of reading subjectivity beyond identity.
The first five chapters in the second section, ‘Queer Times and Places’, in contrast to the previous section, take readers more into the territory of the classical subdisciplines, providing an overview of how we might use queer theory(/ies) in different ways. Sapsford and M. Bell walk us through music and performance studies respectively, whilst Lindheim and D. Youd each take a turn queering literary and philological studies. D. Fredrick's offering casts a queer eye over Roman art, mapping out a material turn for the application of queer. Finally I. Ruffell's chapter, rather than a classical subdiscipline, provides a good introductory approach to applying trans identity and history to the Classics – an important area for the handbook to engage with, even if transgender studies is less a subdiscipline of queer theory and more, in the words of trans historian S. Stryker, its ‘evil twin’ (S. Stryker, ‘Transgender Studies: Queer Theory's Evil Twin’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 10 [2004], 212–15). There are other chapters across the handbook that engage with transgender studies to a greater or lesser extent, such as Bell's and Haselswerdt's, and representations of trans and non-binary identities, for example in Miller's and H. Silverblank's, but it is perhaps worth noting that this is the only chapter that prioritises transness over other queer identities, experiences or themes.
The editors admit in the introduction that the next section, ‘Queer Kinships’, was not one they originally conceived of, but one that emerged during the process of compiling the volume – and as J. Oliver notes in the suggestions for further reading, ‘queer kinship is something of a cause célèbre in queer theory and references to it can be found in a range of divergent and queer-theoretical texts’ (p. 284). In this way, then, we might expect it to be the most narrowly focused section, but these chapters are as diverse and wide-ranging as the rest of the volume. There are two main ways that kinship theory and (queer) relationships are analysed in this section. E. Piros, Oliver and Devecka look at kinship relations in ancient sources, and the ways in which ancient characters and authors relate to each other and their audiences in normative and non-normative ways. These take readers through ideas of familial relationships, with a particular concern for intergenerational inheritance and reproduction. Interspersing these chapters in this section, N. D'Angelo, Silverblank and M. Ward turn ideas and methodologies of kinship and genealogy on the discipline of Classics itself. In many ways, the topic remains intergenerational inheritance, but now it is we who are inheriting our own understanding of Classical Studies’ relationship to other modern disciplines, particularly medicine, science and astrology. These chapters together unveil the (disturbing) attachments and distances repeated and recited by traditional Classics (and the classical tradition).
Reception studies is an important and growing area of classical studies, and in many ways one that always sits at the heart of queer engagement with the Classics. In this way, then, the section ‘Queer Receptions’ might seem the most natural, but it also seems the least clear as to why these chapters were chosen to be grouped together. This is further complicated by the fact that there are chapters that would smoothly fit into the area of ‘queer reception’ in every section of the handbook. The chapters that have been placed here certainly fit the bill and showcase through case-study-based discussions a range of different archives in which to find queer and classical echoes. K. Nguyen and I. Han both take as their archives modern queer writers engaging with a search for Sappho in the search for modern queer (and particularly lesbian) identity. Twentieth-century queer (and particularly gay men's) politics are brought out in the next two chapters, as A. Blanshard considers muscle photography in physique magazine's reception of a white-washed and normative classical past, whilst E. Capettini reflects on literary interventions responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis and its handling in particular by the US government. The final two chapters of this section draw on academic engagement with the classical past, albeit in very different ways: D. Orrells takes us to the classical beginnings of queer theory itself, whilst E. Colli invites us to view queer club performances as a vehicle for thinking about what we accept as studiable receptions, what narratives we look for and, as such, what narratives we find.
The closing sentence of Haselswerdt's contribution in many ways typifies the theme of the final section (as well as the handbook as a whole): ‘our desire for antiquity, and antiquity's desire, can be mobilized toward a future that is more open, more expansive, and ultimately, more queer’ (p. 456). The chapters in ‘Ancient Pasts/Queer Futures’ look explicitly toward classical and queer futurities, opening up ways of thinking through where our disciplinary intersections might be going. The first two chapters in this section would have fitted in well with the chapters in ‘Queer Times and Places’, as they draw out the intersections of queer theory in and through classical subdisciplines: S. Butler argues for viewing philology as a queer impulse whilst, at the same time, viewing queer longing as a philological drive; Herz, meanwhile, makes a queer argument for a conservative reading of Elagabalus and, in the process, distils a queer methodology for historians. M. Telò's chapter resonates strongly with the pieces by Rankine and Åshede, as he utilises posthumanist thinking to read queer and non-human sex in Oppian's Halieutica, opening up a new perspective on subjectivities.
The final three chapters are each, in a sense, engaged in the question of reception, and as such they would have fitted well under the previous subheading, but nevertheless they are each explicitly future-oriented in their outlook. Haselswerdt draws on contemporary artistic engagements with Sappho as identifications with/to/for a queer lesbian futurity. N. Worman considers Cherríe Moraga's play The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea, which reimagines the titular classical figure as a Chicana lesbian in a dystopian America, as a way of looking forward to a reimagining of masculinity without patriarchy (alongside other reimaginings). Last but by no means least, M. Umachandran speculates on a future of classical reception that works to dismantle the structural hierarchies that hold back our field, building on and between the (white) feminism of Ursula Le Guin and the Afrofuturism of N.K. Jemisin to explore the possibilities and potentials of a future classical discipline.
Overall: a hefty volume, but within the heft lie a number of useful reflections on and interventions into the field of queer Classics.
