Nelson laments that she doesn't know "many - if any - queers who think of their desires as being 'same-sex.'" She notes that "whatever sameness" she encounters in her relationships with women is not that of gender, but rather "the shared, crushing understanding of what it means it live in a patriarchy." Pregnancy Is a Radical ActĬarrying a baby "profoundly alters one's 'normal' state," writes Nelson, which she asserts is an "inherently queer" experience.
Here are 10 things Nelson taught me about queer theory, which you'll definitely be interested in, too: (Spoiler alert: It's completely fascinating.) For someone interested learning about the theories that help define the queer movement, Nelson offers a guidebook to help new initiates navigate the various thinkers that populate this continually evolving sphere. Nelson familiarized me with gender studies philosophers like Judith Butler and Eve Sedgwick, whom I had only encountered briefly before the ideas about gender and sexuality I read in The Argonauts act as a solid primer for further study. The Argonauts was my introduction to queer theory. One of the big questions she asks in the text is, "What is queer theory?" This book-length essay attempts to normalize the concept of queer families, rejects the habit of defining identifies using the limiting tools of language, and investigates the different forms and personas that motherhood can take.
That's why I was so excited to pick up her new book The Argonauts. After reading Maggie Nelson's Bluets, an experimental lyric essay that explores her fascination with the color blue, and also acts as eulogy for a past relationship, I've become a disciple of this complex, passionate writer - it's hard not to when you read just a word of hers.
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