New Queer Television

Though queer critics and queer theory tend to frame queer identities as marginal, this edited volume draws attention to a dynamic field in which a wide variety of queer identities can be put on display and consumed by audiences. Cementing a foundational understanding of queerness that is at odds with current shifts in media production, contributors present a broad variety of queer identities from across a range of televisual shows and genres to reconsider the marginalization of queerness in the twenty-first century. Doing so challenges preexisting notions that such “mainstreamification” necessitates being subsumed by the cisheteropatriarchy. This project argues the opposite, showing that heteronormative assumptions are outdated and that new queer representations lay the groundwork for filling gaps that queer criticism has left open.

Thomas Brassington is a researcher whose work explores intersections of queerness and the Gothic in contemporary popular culture. Debra Ferreday is a feminist cultural theorist whose research concerns gender, feminist theory, sexuality, critical race theory, queer theory, and embodiment. Dany Girard is a queer researcher whose work primarily explores representations of gender, asexualities, and queer theory in television and film.

Dr Thomas Brassington received his PhD from Lancaster University, UK. His project, Dragging the Gothic, explores the phenomena of cross-dressing in the Gothic mode through the lens of drag performance. His research interests are in contemporary Gothic, femininities, popular culture and queer Gothic more broadly.

Dr Debra Ferreday is a feminist cultural theorist with strong research interests in gender, feminist theory, sexuality, critical race theory, queer theory and embodiment. Her research engages with embodied and social aspects of new media and digital cultures, celebrity culture, media and violence, fan studies, sexuality studies and mad studies.

Dr Dany Girard received their PhD from Lancaster University, UK. They currently work as a Senior Teaching Associate in Media and Cultural Studies at Lancaster University. Their thesis mapped the evolution of paratextual queer fiction (slash fan fiction) being produced in conjunction to the original series of Star Trek. They are currently
working on both an edited collection and special issue on new queer television. Their research interests revolve around queerbaiting, queer(ed) and trans bodies in horror TV and film, disordered eating and dysphoria, feminine expression and pop culture.