Article Review: Another Country: queer anti-urbanism
The article,’ Another Country: queer anti-urbanism’ by Scott herring talks about the queer culture of gays and lesbianism in most urban centers and cities of the united states with a case study of new York city. He argues that the practice shoots back to the twentieth century with the emergence of urbanized lesbian and gay group identities (Herring, 4). The writer starts by saying he hates New York. His hatred however is not related to its weather condition, lack of water or its high cost of living and house affordability, but based on the easiness and calmness that the modern queer life is taken for granted. He gives examples of HONCHO advert and another from a book that he uses to introduce us to the topic of the queer culture of gay and lesbianism. The city/ urban center or the metropolitan is used by people in this subculture as a place to seek refuge and freedom from exclusion from the rural conservative culture. The urban centers provide good cover for queer sex and therefore gay and lesbianism thrives well and is protected. The sexual culture that seems immoral in the rural setup finds an accommodative environment in the metropolitans. Quoting from an earlier publication, he shows the extent of the queer culture in the city, “Let’s make every space a lesbian and gay space; every street a part of our sexual geography; a city of yearning and then total satisfaction”. He sees the city as a refuge for the gay people. However, Scott fails to notice that since these sexual queer immigrants come from the rural area, then there is a high probability of the rural not being conservative as perceived but rather, the cultural norms that do not permit nor are they flexible to accommodate such cultural changes force the non-conforms away.
Scott defines anti-urbanism based on Leo Marx and thus says it is ‘a far more inclusive if indirect and often equivocal attitude toward the transformation of society and of culture, of which the industrial city is but one manifestation’ (Herring, 12). This definition is ambiguous and does not show his stand as far as gay and lesbian are concerned they can be included in the ‘inclusive’ definition. The transformation in the definition is taken to criticize the rural –urban migration that sees the cultural delinquent members move from surveillance in the rural area where there is suspicion, persecution and secrecy to the city where there is freedom and isolation to practice sexual abnormality of gay and lesbian (Herring, 14). The migration is therefore physical and psychological where it offers freedom.
Scott identifies the divide that guides the queer studies and cultures as less geographical space and more materialized social space which is governed by the dominant metropolitan stylistics. The representation of this culture in the United States in music, movie or print media shows a lot of urbanity. There is a big distinction of the homosexual styles based on the social strata- lower, middle and upper class. There is discrimination to the homosexual in the lower class as they are socially avoided and morally despised by the sophisticated members of the gay world (Herring, 23). Scotts shows the urban centers/ metropolitans as another country where the queer culture is propagated unlike the rural area where the traditional culture is conserved. However, there are some elements of rural area where this urban related has contaminated such as Mississippi.
Works Cited
" Herring, Scott. Another Country: Queer Anti-Urbanism. New York: New York University Press, 2010. Print.
Berlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner. "sex in public." Chicago journals 24.2 (1909): n. pag. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Warf, Barney, and Santa Arias. The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.
