This article focuses on rearrangements of gender and sexuality that invoke the genre of Philippine mythological creatures known as aswang. Working primarily with Rachelle Cruz's poetry collection God's Will for Monsters, it argues that the cultural, spiritual, and literary life of the aswang cross-temporally queers sexual and gendered performances. The aswang's sociogeny unsettles desire, gender, religion, and time amid colonial formations and hierarchies.
This essay probes the modes of remembering Confucian homoeroticism to unsettle Orientalist idealization and homonationalist hierarchy in anglophone scholarship. The author retrieves queer terms such as cut sleeve, male favorites, shared peach, paired eating, Longyang, a different fragrance, wildflowers, and southern wind to show how canonical disapproval of homoeroticism was imbricated with social dynamics to unpredictable effect, thus leaving enormous latitude for forging queer subjectivity. In conversation with the materialist turn in queer theory, the author argues that if our search for a queer Confucian past is limited to finding analogs to European “homosexuality” as a category of sexual identity—and if our criterion for this search is the permission/prohibition divide or the quantity of representation—we risk missing much of queer existence under Confucianism in all its textured complexity. Finally, the author asks how alternate forms of naming might indicate possibilities for queer life less bound by the preoccupations of European juridical (genital configuration), magisterial theological (gender complementarity), and psychological (sexual aim or object) modes of knowing, as well as their descendants in gay liberationist and multiculturalist discourse.
This essay reexamines the New York City Ballet's 1948 production of Orpheus, centering two of its major dancers: Nicholas Magallanes and Francisco Moncion. These two queer Latinx figures (from Mexico and the Dominican Republic, respectively) performed in the roles of Orpheus and the Dark Angel, captivating audiences and critics alike with their intimate choreography. The essay indexes this performance as an early example of how queer Latinx performance and aesthetic practices were imagined through classical Greek narratives. It argues that the tale of Orpheus, as one based in moments of loss and failure through a queer protagonist, has manifested as an apt allegory through which minoritarian subjects in the modern era can imagine their own experiences in a world where perfect outcomes are not promised. It also emphasizes the duet as a method for engaging with historical formations of queer of color aesthetics. In focusing on this rendition of Orpheus, this essay underscores its impact as part of a longer genealogy of queer Latinx philhellenism that has continued to shape Latinx expressive cultures to this day.
