Hoshino Futoshi | Jack Halberstam "In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives"
A review by Hoshino Futoshi of the Japanese translation of Jack Halberstam's "In a Queer Time and Place."Summary
This article is a review by Hoshino Futoshi of the Japanese edition of Jack Halberstam's "In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives" (Kadensha, published December 25, 2025; translated by Kanno Yuka, Hanyu Yuki, and Inoue Emiko). The author begins with a personal recollection, describing how he encountered Halberstam's work through online lecture videos during the COVID-19 pandemic, and notes that Halberstam's work has only recently begun to be introduced in earnest to Japanese-language readers. The book, originally published in 2005, is a representative work of the "temporal turn" in queer theory. Halberstam understands queerness not as reducible to sexual identity but as a "way of life" encompassing strange temporalities, subcultural practices, and alternative alliances. Regarding space and place, he focuses on the production of queer counterpublics and the divide between urban and rural life, discussing the 1993 murder of Brandon Teena and the concept of "metronormativity." Chapter 5, "Technotopias," analyzes contemporary artists such as J. A. Nicholls, Jenny Saville, Eva Hesse, Del LaGrace Volcano, and Shirin Neshat, proposing an "aesthetics of turbulence." The review concludes that Halberstam's queering also takes root in contemporary art.
(Source：artscape)