Queer and Trans Studies and the Jewish Question: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

research article

Gregg Drinkwater

abstract

Over the past twenty years, Jewish studies scholars have produced an outpouring of work informed by the insights of queer theory while also creating a small but growing library of scholarship centering queer and trans lives. This essay explores the insights gained from this body of work, considering both the limitations for scholarship in this vein within Jewish studies and the potential for new directions in the field. As this essay demonstrates, dozens of Jewish studies scholars have brilliantly deployed queer theory as a productive analytical lens. But the field suffers from a relative paucity of work recovering histories grounded in the lived and embodied experiences of Jewish sexual and gender minorities. This essay calls for deeper analyses of Jewish LGBTQ communities and cultures, along with more studies of queer and trans Jewish pasts and presents. To date, queerly inflected Jewish studies scholarship has been built on a relatively shallow foundation. This essay urges a strengthening and deepening of the field while offering suggestions for future growth.

click here to read the full article at duke university press