Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Queer Feelings, Ann Cvetkovich

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

As people have mobilized in response to the September 11 attacks, I have found myself uncharacteristically dissatisfied by analysis of foreign policy and by teach-ins that consist of supplying information. They're absolutely crucial, and I applaud all of those who have coordinated their energies in this way. But I also want to see, as AIDS activist and theorist Douglas Crimp has argued, mourning and militancy brought together. Crimp has suggested that activism ignores mourning at its own peril, that it cannot simply displace mourning with militancy or fail to address the ways that anger is also motivated by loss.