Review of Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the GLBTQ Past

Dunn, Thomas R. Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the GLBTQ Past. University of South Carolina Press, 2016. 241 pages.

Brianna Casey, University of Wyoming

 (Published March 14, 2018)

We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair…
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

                        – A chant of the Stonewall Riots from Stonewall by Martin Duberman

The Stonewall Riots of 1969 were a tremendous public victory for the GLBTQ community, and the prelude to the modern GLBTQ rights movements. The epigraph quoted above was a chant by rioters that conveys a marked intention to make queerness public and unable to be ignored. The Stonewall Riots were important in enacting social change for the GLBTQ community, but the lasting effects of the Riots on the GLBTQ community’s shared consciousness are significant as well. GLBTQ youth of the 21st century are heavily indebted to the bravery of those involved in the Stonewall Riots, although we are far enough away from the Riots that it can be easy to forget this debt. The Stonewall Riots were brought back into the public memory in 2016 thanks to the dedication of Stonewall Inn as a U.S. National Monument. This action by former President Barack Obama cemented Stonewall Inn in the public memory of not only the queer community, but the United States as a whole.

Thomas Dunn’s 2016 book Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the GLBTQ Past examines queer public memory as we know it. Dunn’s major accomplishment in this text is coining “queer monumentality,” one means of giving lasting meaning to public monuments that are part of the common history of queer peoples in North America. Dunn wishes to observe how public monuments––both material and symbolic––construct the shared memory of the GLBTQ community, an essential step, Dunn argues, in creating social change. Dunn uses examples of material monuments, such as gravestones and the statue of Alexander Wood in Toronto, and symbolic monuments, such as Matthew Shepard and American education, to show how public monuments help to shape a queer public memory.

Dunn’s work follows the tradition of other queer theory scholars in rhetoric and composition, accomplishing Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes’ hope that “queerness has the potential to stretch our sense of what can be composed, but how it can be composed.” Dunn begins this task by walking the reader through how queerness has been composed in the past. Dunn’s first chapter, “‘Making Do’ with Heterosexual History,”  situates queer history amongst heteronormative history–the history of dominant, heterosexual culture. “History” in its broad sense is tricky for GLBTQ individuals; heteronormative culture rejects the existence of queer peoples, using misrepresentation, destruction of records, disqualification of evidence, and many other strategies to keep dominant, heterosexual culture at the center of history (3-4). Therefore, in his first chapter, Dunn demonstrates how queer people of the past have “made do” with heterosexual history. Oscar Wilde, for instance, in his sodomy trial argued for his own innocence by relating his homosexual activity to that of Plato, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare, thereby using heteronormative history to his own advantage in absence of a queer public memory. Dunn also uses the anecdote of Dr. William Robinson, who conceived homosexuals as being “abnormal,” later shifting toward being more sympathetic to homosexuals after having conversations with many gay men and lesbians who wished to prove themselves equal to heterosexuals. Robinson was certainly more tolerant of queer identities, but he ultimately could not retire the notion that there was something slightly “off” about homosexuals. Dunn argues that this is an early example of lesbians and gay men using rhetorical defenses; it is from this point onward that a history for the GLBTQ community is rhetorically and publicly formed. It is after these events that a queer public memory can be constructed through “queer monumentality.” Monumentality for Dunn is not defined only as material monuments made of queer subjects, but also as public representations of GLBTQ history. Made for public audiences and making arguments for social change, queer monuments are powerfully rhetorical. It is through monumentality of the GLBTQ past that a public memory can be shared amongst queer people.

Dunn’s second chapter “A Monument to ‘a great fag,’” shows monumentality of a queer past through the statue of Alexander Wood in Toronto. I had not been aware of Wood, though Dunn makes the case in this chapter that Wood’s statue deserves its status as a queer monument, thereby situating Wood in queer public memory. Wood is a historical figure who, in the late 19th century, was made known for examining the genitals of many men while supposedly investigating a rape. The history of Wood is much contested––many believe he was an outstanding citizen, some believe he abused his authority as a magistrate, and, for the GLBTQ community, he stands as an early, “camp” gay icon. Dunn’s example of Wood’s statue explicates a material monument making a queer public memory. Wood stands as a public representation of the GLBTQ community, thereby “queering” the square in which his monument stands. Further, the viewers’ interactions with Wood’s statue such as the rubbing of Wood’s bum “for good luck” affirms queerness in the public space. Wood’s public monument therefore makes a public rhetorical statement that contributes to a queer public memory. This was the strongest example of queer monumentality in Dunn’s book; in showing how individuals may “queer” a public space, Dunn accomplishes the carving of a queer space. Alexander and Rhodes praise queer theorists such as Anzaldua, Kathy Acker, and Dennis Cooper for imagining ways of carving queer space (197), and Dunn’s example of Alexander Wood is a superb demonstration of “queering” space. 

Dunn’s discussion of Matthew Shepard’s murder bring queer monumentality into the symbolic realm of remembrance. Unlike Alexander Wood, no material monuments stand for Matthew Shepard, and it is for this reason that Dunn argues that the public memory of Shepard’s death creates his monumentality. Dunn argues that Shepard’s death made its way into the queer public memory through malleability, affect, and circulation. The memory of Matthew Shepard is rhetorically powerful because of its malleability––the way that this memory can grow and evolve to fit many situations. Part of this happens through the controversy surrounding Shepard’s martyrdom, with many members of the GLBTQ community resistant to giving saint-like status to another cisgender white man. The affect of Shepard’s death––the concentration on the brutality of Shepard’s murder––also helped to cement Shepard’s case in public memory. The portrait of Shepard as a “common man” helped circulate his case outside of Wyoming and the queer community. These three factors influenced the monumentality and durability of Shepard’s murder in the queer public memory. This was of particular interest to me as a student of the University of Wyoming and as a long-time resident of Casper, Wyoming, Shepard’s hometown. Dunn presents Matthew Shepard’s case whilst providing the controversies within the GLBTQ community, and he does this with grace. Dunn does not, however, address newer controversies surrounding the case, most notably Stephen Jimenez’s 2013 book The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard that speculates on the role of drugs in the case and a sexual relationship between Shepard and one of the assailants. The credibility of Jimenez’s book is perhaps lacking, but anti-gay individuals (particularly in Wyoming, I’ve noticed) have been very happy being able to reduce Shepard’s murder to a “drug deal gone wrong.” This seems to be an important point, especially considering Matthew Shepard’s legacy continues primarily through memory––a memory that certain groups are trying to taint.

The final chapters, for me, are less obvious connections to Dunn’s “queer monumentality” thesis. The fourth chapter, “Imagining GLBTQ Americans,” will be of particular interest to teachers and anyone interested in pedagogy, though the chapter does little for me in developing queer monumentality, the major goal of this book. Teachers will do well to take note of this chapter, as Dunn makes the important move to address heteronormativity and nationalism in the American education system, particularly in textbooks. Dunn argues that textbooks, as a means of patrolling American identity, have a tremendous amount of rhetorical power, though they frequently ignore the history of the GLBTQ community. Clearly there is a connection between textbooks and public memory, and Dunn makes these arguments well, but I am not sold on textbooks as an example of queer monumentality. Dunn’s major argument in this chapter is that GLBTQ history is ignored in textbook and education in general, thereby making a clear connection between education and queer public memory, but Dunn doesn’t give a convincing argument for textbooks as a queer monument––material nor symbolic––to really bring the point home in this chapter. The conclusions made in this chapter are indeed important, though perhaps better suited for a different book. Instructors, especially in writing, should certainly consider how this chapter can influence their teaching. Although queer monumentality doesn’t factor largely into this chapter, assigning this chapter to students could not only get students thinking about the subjectivity of education, but also get students “to critically rethink the various identities that they perform––particularly as gendered and sexed beings––in the pedagogical process,” a noted accomplishment of teaching queer theory in the classroom as investigated by Jonathan Alexander and Michelle Gibson (5). The fifth chapter demonstrates the ways in which death displays (particularly graves) stand as queer monuments. This chapter makes stronger connections to queer monumentality, but some work could have been done on a more logical transition between chapters. Dunn argues that gravestones, for instance, are able to queer a space through form and text––a gravestone marked “gay” or “lesbian” queers the space around it, and non-traditional shapes for gravestones reinforce the nonnormative nature of the grave site itself and the person resting beneath it. Dunn argues that “if we take these prospects further to begin to conceive of a new kind of queer monumentality, we may find our way to even more effective means for combatting heteronormativity’s multifaceted and entrenched tools of oppression” (169).

Dunn concludes his book by reinforcing that the objective of the rhetorical work done in creating a queer public memory is crucial in enacting social change. However, Dunn also calls for better queer monumentality. Queer monumentality, in order to form a more inclusive queer public memory, must do better at including diverse others––queer people of color and trans individuals, for example, although Dunn does not specifically address either group. Dunn’s book may have benefited from smoother transitions and more obvious connections between chapters, but the points made are indeed important. Dunn’s book will surely become increasingly relevant as more recognition is given to queer history. The dedication of the Stonewall Inn as a National Monument in 2016, for instance, is only briefly mentioned, but an updated look at “queer monumentality” will find this event extremely significant. More work on queer monumentality would also benefit from more attention paid to figures of the GLBTQ community who are not cisgender white men. Queer monumentality should address queer people of color and transgender issues, and particularly the erasure of these individuals even from queer public memory. That said, Dunn’s work in Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the GLBTQ Past satisfies an important need in queer theory for investigation into queerness in the public sphere.