Cruising Utopia

"In the course of an introduction, a conclusion, and the ten lush chapters in between, Cruising Utopia elaborates an archive of queer aesthetic practices from the present and the recent past." - Kevin Floyd (Meditations: The Journal of the Marxist Literary Group) "Brilliant, extraordinary, and necessary, Muñozs critical refusal of queer pragmatism, his commitment to the utopian force of the radical attemptthe radical aesthetic, erotic, and philosophical experimentis indispensable in an historical moment characterized by political surrender and intellectual timidity passing itself off as boldness." - Fred Moten,author of In the Break "Muñoz takes Ernst Bloch as his Virgil as he descends into the dark woods of futurity looking for signposts along the way that will guide him to a place of hope, belonging, queerness and quirkiness. Refusing to simply sign on to the & anti-relational, anti-future brand of queer theory espoused by Edelman, Bersani and others, Muñoz insists that for some queers, particularly for queers of color, hope is something one cannot afford to lose and for them giving up on futurity is not an option." - Jack Halberstam,author of In a Queer Time and Place "Gay liberations activist past and pragmatic present are merely prologue to a queer cultural future, Muñoz suggests in this critical condemnation of the political status quo. Casting his vision of a radical gay aesthetic through the prisms of literature, photography and performance, the author dismisses commonplace concerns like same-sex marriage as desires for & mere inclusion in a & corrupt mainstream. More defiantly, he exalts the persistence of commercial sex spaces in the face of & antisex and homphobic policings, and celebrates the overlay of punk and queer in performance spaces." (Publishers Weekly) "In this interesting study of queerness and identity politics, Munoz (performance studies, New York Univ.) invites readers to look beyond the immediate present and toward a queer future." (Choice)