You might’ve seen that I’ve been reblogging quotes about queer theory from this tumblr a lot.  It’s the class tumblr of a class I’m taking with a professor named Vanessa this year.  It’s called “Queer Worlds/Queer Ethnographies.”  During the first semester, we’re thinking about what we mean by “queer” and by “ethnography.”  During the second, we’re writing an ethnography based on some deep hanging out—a term Vanessa uses and that I’ve been using in addition to/instead of “fieldwork.”

I’m going to be writing an ethnography about queer femme online self-documentation, and if you want to be a part of it, please let me know.  If you post pictures of yourself in makeup when you are sad, or if you don’t, I would love to deep hang out with you.  If you write long posts about your feelings so that you can figure out what they are, or if you don’t, I would love to deep hang out with you.  If you are documenting a transition online that has nothing to do with how many weeks you’ve been on hormones, or if you aren’t, I would love to deep hang out with you.

My ethnography isn’t going to observe the usual formal constraints of the genre.  It will probably involve poetry, vignettes, and images—maybe even ventilated prose, which is an idea I’m unsteady on but interested in at the moment.  As you might be able to guess, I’m not “an anthropologist.”  I don’t intend to go to grad school for anthropology; I don’t intend to become a professor of anthropology who occasionally goes on sabbatical to do fieldwork or write a book.  If I had to pick an academic discipline, it would be either literature or critical theory.  If I got to invent my own discipline, it could be called literary justice theory, or something else neat along those lines.  And I have no idea how picking a discipline interacts with the fact that I’m a writer before I’m anything, and that the stuff I mostly write is poetry.

I’m not interested in “documenting” and “theorizing about” passive people.  I’m interested in talking about my analysis with you, collaborating with you on a work about a form of social interaction we both engage in.  I don’t want to demand writing or reading or anything from people who are kind enough to get involved in my project, but if you want to do that kind of stuff I would LOVE it.  All of my theorizing and writing process will be transparent.

With regard to dissemination/publication/exposure, I have no idea right now.  This could be something I try to publish—in which case pseudonyms are a workable thing, though imperfect—or this could be something that my professor and maybe a few classmates read, but no one else.  I’m not sure yet.  If you choose to work with me on this, I will inform you whenever the possibility of dissemination comes up.  If you reject the possibility, it won’t happen.

A word on this project and identities: As a trans person, I’m interested in privileging trans voices over cis voices.  Still, cis femmes are encouraged to message me!

Second word on this project and identities: Because this project is in large part about femme, I’m interested in people who identify now, have identified, feel a connection to the aesthetic of, etc., “fem/me.”  If you’ve distanced yourself from femme or fem or fem/me for whatever reason, but still identify with the self-documentation self-realization practices I’m talking about here, and you’re interested in being involved, please do shoot me a message!

Third and most important word on this project and identities:  I’m a white man; I’m trying not to be scum.  Of course, the fact that I say this could mean nothing at all, because who would trust a white man when he says a thing like that?  All I can say is that I welcome call outs, and would welcome them even more in the course of a project like this.

If you’re reading this post and you’re like, who is this guy, what is his deal, what the hell, here’s some information about me.  On the scholarly side, I always have trouble describing myself, but the books on my desk right now are Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera, Evelyn Waugh’s Charles Ryder’s Schooldays, David Eng’s Racial Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America, Harold Acton’s Memoirs of an Aesthete, Tennessee Williams’s Memoirs, Samuel R. Delaney’s Nova, Ann Cvetkovich’s An Archive of Feelings, EM Forster’s Howard’s End,and a book of queer critiques of Forster called Queer Forster. I like these books and also other books and would like to talk to you about books.

If you have literally any sort of question at all about this project, you can email me at patchworknureyev at gmail, or you can send me a message on tumblr.

It would also be awesome if you could reblog this to signal boost!