American Culture Studies Ph.D. Dissertations
Title
Black Queer TV: Reparative Viewing and the Sociopolitical Questions of Our Now
Date of Award
2022
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department
American Culture Studies
First Advisor
Bill Albertini (Advisor)
Second Advisor
Vibha Bhalla (Other)
Third Advisor
Susana Peña (Committee Member)
Fourth Advisor
Clayton Rosati (Committee Member)
Abstract
This dissertation is rooted in the general question: How do contemporary TV series featuring Black queer and trans representation highlight and address sociopolitical questions often found circulating within queer and cultural studies? Employing three programs, The Prancing Elites Project (2015), Empire (2015), and Pose (2018), this study argues that recent upticks in Black queer characters on TV provide room to move beyond traditional analyses often predicated on critical suspicion to instead engender readings revealing themes related to Black futurity, worldmaking, and coalition building, prominent topics within the fields of queer and cultural studies. Building from both Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s articulation of reparative reading and prior scholarship often critical of Black queer televisual representation, this dissertation’s interventions are both theoretical and methodological, presenting a recalibrated approach to gleaning the richness in Black queer media. Black Queer TV: Reparative Viewing and the Sociopolitical Questions of Our Now invigorates and broadens critical scholarship on media through nuancing programs depicting a range of Black queer people’s represented experiences.
Recommended Citation
Spears, Tobias L., "Black Queer TV: Reparative Viewing and the Sociopolitical Questions of Our Now" (2022). American Culture Studies Ph.D. Dissertations. 130.
https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/acs_diss/130