cultural studies
Utopias
Porn Archives
mark featherstone & malcolm miles ,
tim dean , steven ruszczycky & david squires , editors
special issue editors
a special issue of CULTURAL POLITICS “Everyone working on porn will have to refer to this field-defining collection.
Following the collapse of communist and socialist utopianism in the twentieth century, the global
It is an important book, notable for its compelling argument, stellar roster of contributors, intellectual heft, and broad theoretical scope. It is the most exacting and exciting statement about porn studies to date.” —ROBYN WIEGMAN , author of Object Lessons
economic crisis has
Hut 11, a.k.a. the Bombe Room, a.k.a. “the hell hole.” Photo by Gair Dunlop.
foreclosed the promise of
While sexually explicit writing and
a neoliberal consumerist
art have been around for millennia,
utopia in the twenty-first.
pornography—as an aesthetic, moral,
This special issue of
and juridical category—is a modern inven-
Cultural Politics consid-
tion. The contributors to Porn Archives
ers what happens when
explore how the production and prolifera-
people believe that the system they currently inhabit does not work,
tion of pornography has been intertwined
but they see few viable alternatives, and wide-scale change seems
with the emergence of the archive as a
impossible in any case. Considering history, fiction, art, and economic
conceptual and physical site for preserving,
theory, the contributors think about the ways in which a vital future
cataloguing, and transmitting documents
might emerge from an exhausted culture. Topics include narratives of
and artifacts. By segregating and regulat-
catastrophe and escape in Cold War fiction, the narcotic haze of amuse-
ing access to sexually explicit material,
in contemporary art. The issue also features an interview with autono-
Jess, Untitled “paste-up” (ca. 1950s). © The Jess Collins Trust, used by permission.
mist Paolo Virno on social individualism and imagination. Exploring
porn has become a site for the production of knowledge, as well as
how the current dystopian worldview points toward alternative utopian
the production of pleasure.
ment culture in China, and the meaning of protest and utopian critique
futures, the contributors seize a critical opportunity for new forms of cultural politics to emerge.
archives have helped constitute pornography as a distinct genre. As a result,
The essays in this collection address the historically and culturally varied interactions between porn and the archive. Topics range from
Contributors
library policies governing access to sexually explicit material to the
Thierry Bardini, John Beck, Mark Chou, Mark Dorrian, Gair Dunlop, Mark Featherstone, Jonathan Harris, Malcolm Miles, Tao Dongfeng, Paolo Virno
growing digital archive of “war porn,” or eroticized combat imagery; and from same-sex amputee porn to gay black comic book superhero
Mark Featherstone is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Keele University. Malcolm Miles is Professor of Cultural Theory at the University of
porn. Together the pieces trace pornography as it crosses borders,
Plymouth School of Architecture, Design and Environment.
notions of what counts as legitimate forms of knowledge. The collection
transforms technologies, consolidates sexual identities, and challenges concludes with a valuable resource for scholars: a list of pornography archives held by institutions around the world.
Contributors Jennifer Burns Bright, Eugenie Brinkema, Joseph Bristow, Robert L. Caserio, Ronan Crowley, Tim Dean, Robert Dewhurst, Lisa Downing, Frances Ferguson, Loren Glass, Harri Kalha, Marcia Klotz, Prabha Manuratne, Mireille Miller-Young, Nguyen Tan Hoang, John Paul Ricco, Steven Ruszczycky, Melissa Schindler, Darieck Scott, Caitlin Shanley, Ramo´n E. Soto-Crespo, David Squires, Linda Williams
Tim Dean is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at SUNY at Buffalo, where he is also the Director of the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture. He is the author of Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking and Beyond Sexuality. Steven Ruszczycky recently completed a PhD in English at SUNY at Buffalo, where David Squires is a PhD candidate in English.
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C U LT U R A L S T U D I E S
July 164 pages, 11 illustrations
C U LT U R A L S T U D I E S/ G E N D E R S T U D I E S Vol. 10, no. 2
paper, 978–0–8223–6818–2, $15.00/£9.99
December 544 pages, 31 illustrations paper, 978–0–8223–5680–6, $29.95/£19.99 cloth, 978–0–8223–5671–4, $99.95/£65.00