Le Queer Impérial: Male homoerotic desire in francophone colonial and postcolonial literature(24 Francopolyphonies)

In Le Queer Impérial Julin Everett explores the taboo subject of male homoerotic desire between black Africans and white Europeans in francophone colonial and postcolonial literatures. Everett exposes the intersection of power and desire in blanc-noir relationships in colonial and postcolonial black Africa and postimperial Europe. Reading these literatures for their portrayals of race, gender and sexuality, Everett begins a conversation about personal and political violence in the face of forbidden desires.

About the Author :
Julin Everett, Ph.D. (2010), UCLA, is an Assistant Professor of French at Ursinus College, who has published articles on black Africa and the Caribbean. Her work on self-representation includes the art installation Scene/Unseen on Jewish wearers of the yellow star.

Review :
"Throughout, Everett is [...] careful to emphasize that homoerotic desire can offer continuity with aspects of colonial discourse rather than suggest a liberation from colonial dynamics. [Her] exploration of homophobia in her corpus—as well as in the theoretical writings of thinkers such as Frantz Fanon—is particularly sophisticated and will be of interest to researchers interested in the enduring power of traditions that shape how African male sexuality is represented and understood." - Aedi'ni Ni'Loingsigh, University of Stirling UK, in French Studies: A Quarterly Review Vol. 74.2 2020 pp. 332-333 "Julin Everett’s Le Queer Impérial is an insightful and educational read for any scholar interested in Francophone literature and culture of black Africa, both colonial and postcolonial. Everett’s work is critical for literary scholars of black Africa since, as she highlights so well in her introduction, literary analysis of colonial and postcolonial African literature has not been done in this fashion. Even more impactful is her choice of corpus, composed of white European and black African authors, which underlines a trajectory for how readers can better understand the evolution (if we choose to use the term) of homoerotic desire and depiction in colonial and postcolonial Francophone Africana literature. Everett turns the tacit of homoerotic desire in black Africa into explicit knowledge for the readers of her work." - Daniel Maroun, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign USA, in H-France Review Vol. 19 (July 2019), No. 143 “Le Queer Impérial more than succeeds in its aim to provide ‘a new approach to reading male homoerotic desire and domination in Francophone colonial and postcolonial texts’ (6). By significantly advancing the fields of postcolonial studies and gender and sexuality studies to the often-neglected study of Black Africa, Everett’s kaleidoscopic analysis of homoeroticism paves the way for future transnational considerations.” - Ryan Joyce, Tulane University USA, in sx salon Vol. 37 2021 "Résistant à toute grille d’interprétation réductrice, la puissance théorique de cette étude vient chambouler les champs de lecture habituels, en puisant à la fois dans une vaste bibliothèque théorique allant de l’anthropologie aux plus récents travaux portant sur le queer postcolonial, sur les marginalités, mais aussi et surtout sur les masculinités (postcoloniales). Chaque chapitre offre des analyses pointues de passages souvent au bord de la violence (post)coloniale la plus brutale. L’autrice déconstruit brillamment les épistémologies hétéro-sexistes qui se sont construites à travers le délire prédateur du projet colonial, mais laisse affleurer toutes les contradictions du pouvoir masculin jusque dans son envers et ses travers, ses dépassements outre-genre vers une sexualité queer qui ne peut dire son nom ou s’exprimer librement sous les idéologies régnantes." - Hugues Azérad, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, in Dalhousie French Studies, 2021.