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Although imagined as a queer subcultural practice, drag seems to be everywhere we look: from AI filters on TikTok to brunchtime entertainment, from state legislations to political rallies. Yet as drag enters the mainstream—largely due to the intense, global popularity of reality TV competition RuPaul’s Drag Race—some kinds of gender-based performance fall out of the purview of what we (could) call drag.Decolonize Drag details the ways that gender is used as a form of colonial governance to eliminate various types of expression, and tracks how contemporary drag, including that on
Drag Race, both replicates and disrupts these institutional hierarchies. This book focuses on several gender performers that resist and laugh at colonial projects through their aesthetic practices. It also features the voice of Khubchandani's drag alter ego, judgmental South Asian aunty LaWhore Vagistan. From the firsthand perspective of a drag artist, LaWhore describes encounters with depoliticized versions of drag that leave her disappointed and perplexed, and prompts Khubchandani for context and analysis.
Their dynamic sets the tone for the book, investigating how drag—and gender more broadly—has been privatized and delimited so that it's only available to certain people.
Decolonize Drag argues for more abundance in and access to fashioning gender, and considers how drag changes meaning and efficacy as it shifts across geographies.
About the author
Kareem Khubchandani is an associate professor in the department of theater, dance, and performance studies at Tufts University. He is the author of
Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife, co-editor of
Queer Nightlife and editor of the
TPQ special issue
Critical Aunty Studies. His writing appears in
Scholar and Feminist Online,
Transgender Studies Quarterly,
SAMAJ,
South Asia,
Journal of Asian American Studies, and the
Velvet Light Trap. Khubchandani performs in drag as LaWhore Vagistan who interweaves storytelling, standup comedy, body art, theater, and digital media.
Bhakti Shringarpure is a writer, academic and founding editor of Warscapes magazine. She is the author of
Cold War Assemblages: Decolonization to Digital and a regular contributor to
The Los Angeles Review of Books and
Africa is a Country. She currently runs the Radical Books Collective which pushes for an alternative, inclusive and non-commercial approach to books and reading.
Summary
Although imagined as a queer subcultural practice, drag seems to be everywhere we look: from AI filters on TikTok to brunchtime entertainment, from state legislations to political rallies. Yet as drag enters the mainstream—largely due to the intense, global popularity of reality TV competition RuPaul’s Drag Race—some kinds of gender-based performance fall out of the purview of what we (could) call drag.
Decolonize Drag details the ways that gender is used as a form of colonial governance to eliminate various types of expression, and tracks how contemporary drag, including that on Drag Race, both replicates and disrupts these institutional hierarchies. This book focuses on several gender performers that resist and laugh at colonial projects through their aesthetic practices. It also features the voice of Khubchandani's drag alter ego, judgmental South Asian aunty LaWhore Vagistan. From the firsthand perspective of a drag artist, LaWhore describes encounters with depoliticized versions of drag that leave her disappointed and perplexed, and prompts Khubchandani for context and analysis.
Their dynamic sets the tone for the book, investigating how drag—and gender more broadly—has been privatized and delimited so that it's only available to certain people. Decolonize Drag argues for more abundance in and access to fashioning gender, and considers how drag changes meaning and efficacy as it shifts across geographies.
Foreword
- Host book launch in New York, along with a series of events in conjunction with other Decolonize That! authors.
- Conduct dynamic social media campaign, running giveaways, offering discounts, and coordinating with key influencers.
- Pitch op-eds, excerpts, and reviews to wide array of publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, New York Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Boston Review, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The Nation, The Baffler, Harper’s, Literary Hub, Guernica, Bookforum, Book Riot, Teen Vogue, VICE, The Advocate, Out, Them, and more.
- Pitch television, radio, and podcast interviews with Between the Covers, It’s Been a Minute, The Stacks, Fresh Air, StoryCorps, Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, NPR’s Here & Now, Love and Radio, Sibling Rivalry, Still Processing, This American Life, The Advocate’s LGBTQ&A, and more.
