Work in Progress Papers: Diva Debts

Gary Needham will be presenting a paper entitled 'Diva Debts: The "Value" of Queerness in I Seen Beyonce at Burger King'.

This work in progress paper examines the videos of queer hip-hop artist Cazwell in order to demonstrate the ongoing relevance and diversification of queer theory. The value of queerness here is in a critique of capital’s reification of homonormativity yet, this effect also relates assimilative identities to the question of value in terms of capital. The outsider Cazwell is interesting because he also demarcates queer and homonormative forms of music culture through his mocking of Beyonce and the unquestioned politics of diva worship and the theme of diva debt.

What underpins this work is a larger interest in how queer theory can make sense of capital’s relationship to homonormativity, especially the potential for queerness and queer cultural production to act as a disorganising process that takes to task the economic factors that produce more than willing homonormative cultures and subjects.

The paper takes place on Wednesday March 18, 12.00-1.00pm in GEE219, Clifton Campus, NTU.
(Photo credit: Osei Thompson. Permissions.)