Contemporary art and critical transgender infrastructures / Jeannine Tang. Director's foreword / Lisa Phillips -- Known unknowns: an introduction to Trap door / Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley and Johanna Burton -- The labor of werqing it: the performance and protest strategies of Sir Lady Java / Treva Ellison -- Cautious living: black trans women and the politics of documentation / Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and Cece McDonald in conversation with Toshio Meronek -- Existing in the world: blackness at the edge of trans visibility / Che Gossett and Juliana Huxtable in conversation -- Trans history in a moment of danger: organizing within and beyond "visibility" in the 1970s / Abram J. Lewis -- Out of obscurity: trans resistance 1969-2016 / Grace Dunham -- Introducing the Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art / Chris E. Vargas -- One from the vaults: gossip, access, and trans history-telling / Morgan M. Page -- Everywhere archives: transgendering, trans Asians, and the Internet / Mel Y. Chen -- Dark shimmers: the rhythm of necropolitical affect in digital media / Micha Cardenas -- Blackness and the trouble of trans visibility / Che Gossett -- Representation and its limits / Roundtable participants: Lexi Adsit, Sydney Freeland, Robert Hamblin, and Geo Wyeth; moderator: Tavia Nyong'o -- The last extremists? / Heather Love -- An affinity of hammers / Sara Ahmed -- The guild of the brave poor things / Park McArthur and Constantina Zavitsanos -- Spiderwomen / Eva Hayward -- Proximity: on the work of Mark Aguhar / Roy Perez -- Dynamic static / Nicole Archer -- Model of futurity / Roundtable participants: Kai Lumumba Barrow, Yve Laris Cohen, and Kalaniopua Young; moderator: Dan Spade -- All terror, all beauty / Wu Tsang and Fred Moten in conversation -- Canonical undoings: notes on trans art and archives / Stamatina Gregory and Jeanne Vaccaro -- Contemporary art and critical transgender infrastructures / Jeannine Tang.
Summary:
The increasing representation of trans identity throughout art and popular culture in recent years has been nothing if not paradoxical. Trans visibility is touted as a sign of a liberal society, but it has coincided with a political moment marked both by heightened violence against trans people (especially trans women of color) and by the suppression of trans rights under civil law. 'Trap Door' grapples with these contradictions. The essays, conversations, and dossiers gathered here delve into themes as wide-ranging yet interconnected as beauty, performativity, activism, and police brutality. Collectively, they attest to how trans people are frequently offered "doors"--Entrances to visibility and recognition -- that are actually "traps," accommodating trans bodies and communities only insofar as they cooperate with dominant norms. The volume speculates about a third term, perhaps uniquely suited for our time: the trapdoor, neither entrance nor exit, but a secret passageway leading elsewhere.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.