Queer.Black Politics, Queer.Black Communities: Touching the Utopian Frame in Delany’s Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

Samuel Delany’s latest novel, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, tells the story of two men living in a queer.black utopia staged in the not-too-distant American future. The conceit of this novel—its perpetual calling into question of the stakes and praxis of intersectional utopianism—reflects Delany’s growing anxiety over his work’s absorption into academic discourse, as well as his continued interest in the residual presence of identity politics in the post-Obama era. This essay performs a close-reading of the novel, contextualizing it with the changing utility and promise of queer.black politics in America.