Gender Studies

Greenspan and Rivera-Servera win Lambda Literary awards

by Shaun Manning June 4, 2013

Two books from the University of Michigan Press took home top honors at last night’s Lambda Literary Award ceremony. The Myopia and Other Plays by David Greenspan, edited by Marc Robinson, won the LGBT Drama category and Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics by Ramon Rivera-Servera won for LGBT Studies. Sara Warner’s Acts of Gaiety was also nominated in the LGBT Studies category. Now in their 25th year, the Lambda Literary Awards (or “Lammys”) are presented annually to the best books on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender themes in an array of fiction and nonfiction categories. Greenspan’s win represents the second consecutive [...]

Ramon Rivera-Servera wins Latino Studies Section of LASA Award for Best Book

by Shaun Manning June 3, 2013

The University of Michigan Press is proud to congratulate Ramon Rivera-Servera on receiving the Latino Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association Award for Best Book for his book Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics. The prize represents one of the most significant awards, as it considers books across all disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Rivera-Servera’s book, which has also been nominated for a Lambda Literary award, examines the ways in which performance shaped the queer public culture of the 1990s and early 2000s, unifying individuals of diverse backgrounds in an era marked both by increased influence [...]

Francesca Royster talks ‘Sounding Like a No-No’ on Left of Black

by Phillip Witteveen April 29, 2013

Author Francesca Royster appeared on Mark Anthony Neal’s Left of Black to discuss her recent book Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era. On the book’s title, which is taken from Grace Jones’ “Walking in the Rain,” Royster said, “‘sounding like a no-no’ was such a great line, because you just got this sense of taboo.” This sense of taboo is central to the greater cultural investigation on black queerness the book is a part of, Royster said. Royster uses the word “queer” in a broader sense, to open up the conversation about eccentricity. “Eccentric [...]

Lammy Spotlight: “Performing Queer Latinidad”

by Phillip Witteveen March 20, 2013

Performing Queer Latinidad is our third finalist in the 25th Annual Lambda Literary Awards, celebrating excellence in writing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender subjects. In Performing Queer Latinidad, Ramon Rivera-Servera deconstructs a crucial period of change in a queer subculture Latina/o culture in the United States as it expanded and gained influence in the 1990s and early 2000s. The social event of performance became a foothold in urban centers against intolerance in the double dose of homophobia and xenophobia. Focusing most specifically on the influences of dance and choreography, including dancer Arthur Aviles and musical styles such as Karamba and Reggaetón, [...]

Lammy Spotlight: “Acts of Gaiety”

by Phillip Witteveen March 13, 2013

Sara Warner’s Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure is our second finalist in the running for the 25th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. Competing in the LGBT studies category, Acts of Gaiety reexamines the history of lesbian and feminist history, focusing on a central joie de vivre where it manifests itself in the theater and political agenda of the LGBT community. Beginning with the Valerie Solanas’ emergence from early lesbian-feminist activism in the mid 1960s, Warner follows the spirit of performance that sustains the gay rights movement all the way to the present day, with modern artists such as Diane DiMassa (creator of [...]

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