Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

Queer theory is not new, but because the academic discipline of philosophy has not fully embraced this project, Queering Philosophy is an important book. It confronts "straight habits" within philosophy while simultaneously exploring ways of doing philosophy differently, particularly through a three-faceted methodology of counter-memory, smuggling, and recruitment. Counter-memory means collaborating with texts outside the canon, "philosophy alongside queer studies, queer alongside disability, race, gender, class, nation, and age" (p. 15). Smuggling means employing texts customarily excluded from the discipline to "call attention to and resist queer-eradicating practices in the field" (p. 15). Recruitment means enlisting theories and theorists "beyond individual self-identification as queer, a philosopher, or a queer philosopher" (p. 16). The result is promiscuous, collaborative, interdisciplinary, and intersectional; it is also an urgent and welcome addition to the literature on philosophy in general and to queer philosophy in particular. There is nothing profound or particularly surprising here, but the book is well written and well researched and will likely be useful reading, especially for those grappling with related subject matter. It is short enough to be squeezed into an existing reading list.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.