Description: Written for an international audience, Priscilla, (White) Queen of the Desert speaks to the current crisis in queer rights and representation in the context of colonial nations. Focusing on issues of identity, but exploring concerns as wide ranging as morality, same-sex marriage, state sanction, families, and history, this book will appeal to students, activists and academics alike. Asking hard questions of queer rights movements, and the identity politics that often inform them, the book calls for a sustained engagement with the theorisation of queer racial identity and queer race privilege.
Review Quotes: «Damien W. Riggs' elegantly written and scrupulously self-reflexive book is a valuable resource for scholars and activists everywhere working at the intersections of postcolonial, queer, and critical race studies. Riggs not only engages in the important work of interrogating specific cultural and political constructions of whiteness in Australia and elsewhere, but also provides a theoretical framework for thinking and acting through a queer politics that recognizes its multiple racializations.» (Ian Barnard, Assistant Professor, Department of English/Teachers for a New Era Faculty, California State University, Northridge; Author of 'Queer Race: Cultural Interventions in the Racial Politics of Queer Theory')
«I am convinced that in addition to finding a home on academic bookshelves, 'Priscilla, (White) Queen of the Desert' will become an indispensable and well-worn handbook for white queer activists seeking to understand the material investments, ethical complexities, and affective ambivalence entailed in engaging with those straight and queer subjects who are currently relegated to the margins of privilege in post-colonising societies such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.» (Fiona Nicoll, Author, 'From Diggers to Drag Queens: Configurations of Twentieth Century Australian Identity')