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QUESTION WORKS


Included underneath is a transcript of the book Against the Romance of Community by Miranda Joseph. It includes all questionmarks printed in the book.




I propose the following prompt:
- Find a questionmark
- Copy the sentence preceding this questionmark
- Repeat until you’ve found all questionmarks


If you are interested in (the) writing, feel free to reach out. You can reach me at thorst@princeton.edu
Joseph, Miranda. Against the Romance of Community. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.


INTRODUCTION

My question is, why?

Liz then set off a furor by asking, "Would a funder give money to this?"

So if we were a gay male theater and a lesbian theater working together then we could get funding for that?

Can we add, "speak to the human condition and resonates for the gay and lesbian community"?

Beginning to think forward the question that informs the third chapter of this book, on the relation of nonprofits to capitalism, I wondered how different, how much more authentic, these MAC members, all heads of nonprofit corporations, were from those whom they discounted?

What does the good society toward which "we" are working look like?

And what is the nature of the "we" who undertakes that work?

Who is included in the project?

How do "we" relate to each other in the work?

What is the motor driving this discourse ever onward, despite our best efforts to shift it?

What makes all these smart theorists want to salvage a term and practice they themselves recognize has been a crucial tool in the very violences they wish to stop?


CHAPTER ONE: The Supplementarity of Community with Capital; or, A Critique of the Romantic Discourse of Community

"Where have all the followers gone?"

"Whose History Is Bunk?"

"'Multiculturalism' arises as a reaction against Anglo- or Eurocentrism; but at what point does it pass over into an ethnocentrism of its own?"

"When does obsession with differences begin to threaten the idea of an overarching American nation?"

"Will the center hold?"

"Where is the consensus for 'Piss Christ'?"

"Are we so little mindful of the diversity of our Nation and the centrality of censorship in the experience of not just a few but I would almost say eery religious and ethnic inheritance in this land?"


CHAPTER TWO: The Performance of Production and Consumption

"Do Clothes Make the Woman?"

But how many practices or potential meanings did Marx take into consideration?

How does this work when applied to consumption?

What are the relations between these simultaneous but divergent new social formations?

A Queer Interlude--Performativity: Productive or Antiproductive?


CHAPTER THREE: Not for Profit? Voluntary Associations and the Willing Subject

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Did you buy tickets regularly?

Not for Profit?

In what sense cautious?

And what do they think those people want?

Not for Profit?

You didn't know other lesbians?

Not for Profit?

"Did you see?"

So where were you?

You were about to say yes to Brian and take that first job at Rhino, which sounds like something about coming out?

How much did Brian know about your sexual preference?

Not for Profit?

Were they all lesbians?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

So Rhino was your main gay/lesbian connection?

So the theater wasn't your only access?

Not for Profit?

Now how do you feel having the Eureka [a mainstream nonprofit theater] produce "Angels in America"--do you feel okay about that?

So is that part of your role at Rhino now?

Explain to me what your position is and what you are doing?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

"So what do you do?"

"Oh really, what's it on?"

"Theatre Rhinoceros?"

"Why are you studying them?"

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

What do you mean, "like us"?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

"Yeah, but how many straight plays are about relationships or family?"

Wait a minute, I guess I don't understand, what really is the problem with this statement of Kushner's?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?

Not for Profit?


CHAPTER FOUR: The Perfect Moment: Gays, Christians, and the National Endowment for the Arts

And what are these?

She said that she could honestly answer yes to the question, "Do you know Christ as your own personal savior?"

Christina asked, "Is it possible to fund the arts in a democratic society?"

"Is there a way to have a policy when multiple points of view is a fundamental idea?"

"What's the significance of a nation for a Christian?"

And what standards should those be?

(are they really multicultural if they are all members of this church?)

"'Why should public dollars go for a photograph that shows a man with his fist up somebody else's anal orifice?'"


CHAPTER FIVE: Kinship and the Culturalization of Capitalism: The Discourse of Global/Localization
EPILOGUE: What Is to Be Done?

What Is to Be Done?


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS



NOTES

"Is Civil Society Obsolete?"

Not for Profit?

"Queer Is?"

"Queer Does?"


BIBLIOGRAPHY

"The Re-emergence of regional Economies?"

"New States, New NGOs?"

"Who Are 'We'?"

"Why Civil Society?"

"Why now?"

"Too Close for Comfort?"

"Where Have All the Followers Gone?"

"Imagining a Post-Development Era?"

"Escape from Politics?"

"What Is an Author?"

"What's Critical About Critical Theory?"

"Is Market Society the Fin of History?"

"To Gain Subsidies, Must Art Be Useful?"

"Must It Be Sweet?"

NGOs and Civil Society: Democracy by Proxy?

"Queer Is?"

"Queer Does?"

"Can Homosexuals End Western Civilization as We Know It?"

"Whose History Is Bunk?"

"What's Home Got to Do with It?"

"The Study of Choice or the Study of Provisioning?"

Pan-Africanism or Communism?

"Kindness or Justice?"

"Can Philanthropy Solve the Problems of Civil Society?"

"Can the Subaltern Speak?"

"A Phantom State?"

"Do Clothes Make the Woman?"

"Is Civil Society Obsolete?"


INDEX



COVER