The Queer Intersectional in Contemporary Germany ed. by Christopher Sweetapple (review)

In this assemblage of seven essays, Christopher Sweetapple traces what he terms the “queer intersectional” in contemporary Germany— an expression he coins to label a stream of burgeoning queer and antiracist political movements. Cognizant that the United States functions as a locus for theories of race and queerness that often looks inward and functions as the stalwart of epistemic imbalance, Sweetapple both conducts and selects translations from German to English, thereby rendering a collection of antiracist, queer theorists available to English-speakers.

Written by Salih Alexander Wolter, “Queer (Anti)Capitalism I” charts radical LGBT liberation actions alongside capitalist developments in elucidating the mutually constitutive entanglements among antiracism, queer rebellion, and anticapitalism. More specifically, Wolter illustrates capitalism’s craft ing of sexual, racial, and national identities— concepts that were subsequently commoditized and represented as belonging to white, homosexual men.

“Queer (Anti) Capitalism II” follows in the footsteps of Wolter’s work; here, Heinz-Jürgen Voß demonstrates how capitalist developments in Germany and Europe at large have consistently demonstrated sexual, gendered, and ethnoracial dynamics. This chapter traverses the high cost of Europe’s progress: the fortification of borders, continuation of poor working conditions, and heterosexual reproduction are all prerequisites for capitalism’s readily available workforce. This postcolonial and Marxist essay culminates in a brief historiography of LGBT activism in Germany— including the anti-migrant stance propagated by LGBT groups and communities in the last three decades that position white, gay, and middle-class against Black, hetero, and poor.

Progressing to a micro-analysis, Zülfukar Çetin’s essay analyzes the tethers among racism, class dominance, and nation within different LGBT Berlin districts over the past twenty years. Drawing on Jasbir Puar’s concept of homonationalism, chapter 4 parses ongoing LGBT activisms while laying bare embedded racisms and nationalisms. This interrelated network, it is claimed, generates a system of exclusions and inclusions that strengthen and co-constitute one another within the framework of the nation-state. More specifically, the stream of anti-immigration and nationalist agendas of predominantly white LGBT groups is brought to the fore, especially in gentrified/gentrifying neighborhoods within Berlin proper.

The subsequent chapter by Koray Yilmaz-Günay and Salih Alexander Wolter skillfully traces the ways in which LGBT individuals and contemporary groups have utilized the figure of the Jew for institution building. The resulting Holocaust victimology overlooks the racial fanaticism of the Nazi campaign against Jews. This presumed mutual exclusivity precludes the possibility of queerness belonging to Jews and posits the figure of the queer as a white, gentile male.

Chapter 6 is a brief statement by Zülfukar Çetin and Daniel Hendrickson in response to the ways in which cruising has been reported in Berlin’s Tiergarten beginning in 2017. More specifically, reports have problematized sex work in depicting an older, white German male preying upon a heterosexual, brown-skinned male migrant. The authors rail against such narratives, stating that such reporting strips male refugees of their sexuality and infantilizes them, all while demonizing the older German clients.

Sweetapple’s volume closes with a coauthored article by Judith Butler and Sabine Hark from Die Zeit— a piece they originally published in German following Butler’s rejection of the Civil Courage Award in Berlin in 2010 on Christopher Street Day. Butler denounces the “crude bourgeois attitude” (203) that permits vitriol sans accountability, while critically distancing herself from the complicity with racism within the LGBT community.

As a German contribution to the “queer intersectional,” Sweetapple’s collection is indispensable. His commissioned, collected, and personally conducted translations render vital queer scholarship accessible to the English-speaking world. Many German-speaking theorists and historiographies are introduced to the reader, though the preponderance of references to US theorists may contribute to the epistemic imbalance that Sweetapple attempts to rectify. Few antiracist, queer German-language scholars are known in the United States; thus this volume provides an invaluable service.

The strengths of Sweetapple’s selections lie in their boldness to reject LGBT communities, spaces, and...