Jack Halberstam | |
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 Jack Halberstam, 2011
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| Born | December 15, 1961 |
| Other names |
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| Alma mater |
University of California, Berkeley (B.A.) University of Minnesota (M.A., Ph.D) |
| Occupation(s) | Professor, author |
| Employer | Columbia University |
| Known for | Queer philosophy |
Jack Halberstam (/ˈhælbərstæm/; born December 15, 1961), previously known as Judith Halberstam, is an American academic and author. Since 2017, Halberstam has been a professor in the department of English and comparative literature and the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Columbia University. Previously, Halberstam was a professor of American studies and ethnicity, gender studies, and comparative literature, and the director of The Center for Feminist Research at University of Southern California (USC). Halberstam was the associate professor in the Department of Literature at the University of California at San Diego before working at USC. Halberstam is a gender and queer theorist and author.
Halberstam's writings focus on the topic of tomboys and female masculinity in the 1998 book, Female Masculinity, which discusses a common by-product of gender binarism, termed "the bathroom problem.″ This outlines the awkward and dangerous dilemma of a perceived "gender deviant's" justification of presence in a gender-policed zone, such as a public bathroom, and the identity implications of "passing" therein.Assigned female at birth, Halberstam is unspecific in preferred pronouns, but uses the preferred name "Jack" publicly and professionally.
Halberstam lectures in the United States and internationally on queer failure, sex and media, subcultures, visual culture, gender variance, popular film and animation. Halberstam is currently working on several projects including a book on fascism and (homo)sexuality.
Early life, education and gender identity
Halberstam earned a B.A. in English at the University of California, Berkeley in 1985, an M.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1989, and a Ph.D. from the same school in 1991. Halberstam is Jewish, with family history in Bohemia.
Halberstam goes by the name "Jack", and is "loosey goosey" and a "free floater" when it comes to gender identity/binary conformity and pronoun-usage. Halberstam has said that "some people call me Jack, my sister calls me Jude, people I've known forever call me Judith" and "I try not to police any of it. A lot of people call me he, some people call me she, and I let it be a weird mix of things." Halberstam says that "the back and forth between he and she sort of captures the form that my gender takes nowadays" and that the floating gender pronouns have captured Jack's refusal to resolve gender ambiguity. Jack does, however, say that "grouping me with someone else who seems to have a female embodiment and then calling us 'ladies', is never, ever ok!"
Career
Female Masculinity
In Female Masculinity (1998), Halberstam seeks to identify what constitutes masculinity in society the individual. The text first suggests that masculinity is a construction that promotes particular brands of male-ness while at the same time subordinating "alternative masculinities." The project specifically focuses on the ways female masculinity has been traditionally ignored in academia and society at large. To illustrate a cultural mechanism of subordinating alternative masculinities, Halberstam brings up James Bond and GoldenEye as an example, noting that gender performance in this film is far from what is traditional: M is the character who "most convincingly performs masculinity," Bond can only perform masculinity through his suave clothing and gadgets, and Q can be read "as a perfect model of the interpenetration of queer and dominant regimes." This interpretation of these characters challenges long-held ideas about what qualities create masculinity. Halberstam also brings up the example of the tomboy, a clear case of a youthful girl exerting masculine qualities—and raises the complication that within a youthful figure, the idea of masculinity expressed within a female body is less threatening, and only becomes threatening when those masculine tendencies are still apparent as the child progresses in age.
Halberstam then focuses on "the bathroom problem." Here, the question of the gender binary is brought up. Halberstam argues it is an issue when there are two separate bathrooms for different genders, with no place for people who do not clearly fit into the binary. The problem of policing that occurs around the bathrooms is also a focal point for examination of the bathroom problem as not only is this a policing on the legal level, but also on the social level. According to Halberstam, the social aspect makes it even more difficult for people who do not adhere to binary standards to use public restrooms without encountering some sort of uncomfortable, or even violent, situation.
The Queer Art of Failure
In The Queer Art of Failure (2011), Halberstam argues that failure can be a productive way of critiquing capitalism and heteronormativity. Using examples from popular culture, like Pixar animated films, Halberstam explores alternatives to individualism and conformity. L. Ayu Saraswati calls The Queer Art of Failure "a groundbreaking book that retheorizes failure and its relationship to the process of knowledge production and being in the world."
Gaga Feminism
In Gaga Feminism Halberstam uses Lady Gaga as a symbol for a new era of sexual and gender expression in the 21st century. The book has been noted as "a work that engages in the theorizing of contemporary gender relations and their cultural narratives, and the practice of calling for a chaotic upending of normative categories in an act of sociopolitical anarchy." Halberstam describes the five tenets of Gaga feminism:
- Wisdom lies in the unexpected and the unanticipated.
- Transformation is inevitable, but don't look for the evidence of change in the everyday; look around, look on the peripheries, the margins, and there you will see its impact.
- Think counterintuitively, act accordingly.
- Practice creative non-believing.
- Gaga Feminism is outrageous ... impolite, abrupt, abrasive and bold.
Halberstam uses contemporary pop culture examples such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Bridesmaids, and Dory from Finding Nemo to explore these tenets.
Other works
In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives, published in 2005, looks at queer subculture, and proposes a conception of time and space independent of the influence of normative heterosexual/familial lifestyle. Halberstam coedits the book series "Perverse Modernities" with Lisa Lowe.
Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability, published in 2018, examines recent developments in the meanings of gender and gendered bodies. Through dissecting gendered language and creations of popular culture, Halberstam presents a complex view of the trans* body and its place in the modern world.
Personal life
Halberstam is one of six children. Halberstam's father, Heini Halberstam, and mother, Heather Peacock, were married until Heather's death in a car accident in 1971.
Halberstam is attracted to women. After a relationship of 12 years, Halberstam has been romantically involved with a female sociology professor from Los Angeles, since 2008. Halberstam has said that he feels no pressure to marry, viewing marriage as a patriarchal institution that should not be a prerequisite for obtaining health care and deeming children "legitimate." Halberstam believes that "the couple form is failing".
Honors and awards
Halberstam has been nominated three times for Lambda Literary Awards, twice for the non-fiction book Female Masculinity.
Halberstam was awarded the Arcus/Places Prize in 2018 from Places Journal for innovative public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality and the built environment.
Books
- Halberstam, Judith and Ira Livingston, Eds. Posthuman Bodies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-253-32894-2 & 0253209706
- Halberstam, Judith. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8223-1651-X & 0822316633
- Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8223-2226-9 & 0822322439
- Halberstam, Judith and Del LaGrace Volcano. The Drag King Book. London: Serpent's Tale, 1999. ISBN 1-85242-607-1
- Halberstam, Judith. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8147-3584-3 & 0814735851
- Halberstam, Judith, David Eng & José Esteban Muñoz, Eds. What's Queer about Queer Studies Now? Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8223-6621-5
- Halberstam, Judith. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. ISBN 0-8223-5045-9 & 978-0822350453
- Halberstam, J. Jack. Gaga Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press, 2012. ISBN 978-080701098-3
- Halberstam, Jack. Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability. Oakland: University of California Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0520292697
- Halberstam, Jack. Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4780-1108-8
Interviews
- Damon R. Young, "Public Thinker: Jack Halberstam on Wildness, Anarchy, and Growing Up Punk." Public Books, March 26, 2019.
- Mathias Danbolt, "The Eccentric Archive - An Interview with Judith Halberstam" in Trikster – Nordic Queer Journal #1, 2008.
- Podcast from Critical Lede October 5, 2011
- Interview with Halberstam by Sinclair Sexsmith February 1, 2012
- Interview with Halberstam by Elizabeth Heineman on Feb 3, 2012 (archived)
External links
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Media related to Jack Halberstam at Wikimedia Commons - Interview with Peter Shea at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota, June 2010
- 500 Words essay in Art Forum October 17, 2011
- Trans* Bodies Lecture by Jack Halberstam at Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
