Catching Sight: Queer Worldmaking in a Glance

In a sequence of passing glimpses—at turns theoretical, personal, and analytical— this essay considers the humble but forceful glance as a vital mode of queer worldmaking. Setting out from Alex Wong’s photograph of Carson Jones conspicuously cutting eyes at Vice President Mike Pence during Doug Jones’s senatorial swearing-in on January 3, 2018, this essay explores the subjective, relational, and communal modes through which glancing exerts force. Weaving through our personal and public lives, the authors contend, glancing stitches the visual matrix from which we navigate and construct our social worlds.