Towards a Post-Queer Modernity: The Reclamation of Same-Sex Literary Cultures of/in India

Abstract

The idea that the discourses and the praxes of sexualities need to be critically
interrogated, problematized, and rethought of has gained ground in the recent past, and
the issue of ‘modernity’ has come to occupy one of the key positions that inform and
complicate this project. However, the singular idea of ‘modernity’ is both inadequate
and detrimental towards the plurality of modernities in the non-West, necessitating a
rethinking through what Dilip Gaonkar and Charles Taylor theorize as ‘alternative
modernities.’ In this context, research on the modernities of ‘queer’ sexualities can be
re-oriented through a consideration of what has been theorized as the ‘post-queer’ by
Peter Jackson, David Ruffolo, and Adam Green. This paper considers ‘alternative
modernities’ and the ‘post-queer’ co-relationally and attempts at interrogating the idea
of a multivalent post-queer modernity through a discussion of some key queer literary
and critical texts published in the past two decades in India.