The College Fix

‘Queer theory is largely absent’ from ‘leadership studies,’ author says

An academic paper explores the idea of a “queerest insurrection,” “queering leadership” and “anarchism.”

University of California Riverside grad student Josie Holland wrote the article, published in The Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies.

Holland, an English doctoral student, wrote that “queering refers to a process of destabilizing norms and assumptions that invoke the possibility of an otherwise world and way of being and relating.”

“Queer theory is a tool to trouble categories, reject and subvert the assumed or naturalized ways of being in the world, and open up or reveal spaces of play and experimentation,” Holland wrote. “It deconstructs conventions of politics and makes way for new forms.”

The grad student states further:

The assertion that insurrectionary processes, often used in anarchist movements, and queering are the same reveals an important aspect of queer anarchist politics: the idea that destabilizing and undermining norms is insurrectionary, with the potential to open new ways of living.

Holland quotes approvingly from an anarchist tract titled “Toward the queerest insurrection.”

“If we desire a world without restraint, we must tear this one to the ground,” the author wrote. “We must live beyond measure and love and desire in ways most devastating. We must come to understand the feeling of social war,” the tract states.

The graduate student said she is not available for interviews at this time, when reached by The College Fix for comment.

The Fix asked how Holland envisions principles of queer anarchism applied in traditional leadership settings, such as education, and what role leaders in education play in promoting or challenging political ideologies.

MORE: Boston U. offers ‘queering health’ class to teach ‘LGBTQ+ affirming therapies’

An education commentator and senior fellow at the conservative Heartland Institute criticized the theories presented in the paper.

“This movement is an outgrowth of relativism and deconstruction and may represent the undoing of it all,” S.T. Karnick told The Fix via email.

The Heartland Institute is a think-tank that focuses on issues in “education, environmental protection, health care, budgets and taxes, and Stopping Socialism.”

Karnick says that queer theory, however, does not work as seamlessly as the author implies.

“Queer theory proponents obviously imagine themselves to be the new authorities who will arise from the ashes of civilization, but their own success at undermining authority destroys the credibility of their own subsequent leadership,” he said.

“They will inevitably resort to force, just as the academy has done for the past several decades through political correctness, speech codes and censorship, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and other such openly authoritarian actions,” he said.

Queer leadership in the education system comes with particular risks.

Karnick said, “Queer theory in leadership amounts to a contradiction in terms, which the author of the study acknowledges but cannot overcome or resolve.”

“Like relativism and deconstruction before it, queer theory undermines the authority of the scholar and teacher and will soon destroy the academy altogether if left unchecked,” he said.

MORE: Researchers argue for ‘queering nuclear weapons’

IMAGE: John Gomez/Shutterstock

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