Out Here originates from a series of queer studies conferences which took place in Poland between 2002 and 2004, and includes essays, an autobiographical account, and two short stories. Their authors are of eight nationalities: Canadian, Belgian, Flemish, German, Hungarian, Polish, Spanish, Ukrainian, and U.S. American. The academic papers represent a wide range of disciplines: philosophy, literature, ethnography, cultural and gender studies. Some combine theoretical insights and critical analysis with suggestions for activism. The short stories explore the formative moments of a queer adolescence in Anglophone Canada.
The eclecticism of Out Here reflects the cauldron-like mix of concerns taken up locally in places considered peripheral in relation to the centers of queer theory in British and American academia. It is out here (or back then), often within the context of rampant homophobia, that queer methodologies prove especially productive. Out here, queer theory is alive and kicking. Whether the authors write about sexual awakenings in Sri Lanka and Canada, or heterosexism in contemporary Ukraine, Hungary, Belgian parks, and 1970s Britain, or racial exclusion in American gay bars, or the veiled homophobia of Polish textbooks, what connects them is the commitment to questioning the limitations placed on queer desire.
