Straight and White

Abstract

By using straight and white teeth as a metaphor for a straight and White identity, the author reflects on how this identity is performed, maintained, and often problematic. Using literature about identity performance, three different voices speak to and from straight and White identity. Using irony by blending arrogance and ignorance in the voice of the straight and White author, these voices illustrate the cracks in straight and White performance by taking the extreme positions that these performances often rest on. These voices illustrate how education, religion, and hygiene make and maintain (often) arrogant and ignorant straight and White identities. These three voices speak to each other to demonstrate how a methodology that foregrounds our bodies provides space to understand the visibility of identity performances and the politics of writing about with that visibility.

The Placebo as Performance: Speaking Across Domains of Healing

“…It is not quite cultural studies, although it is informed by cultural studies. A few areas covered by performance studies include ritual (Bell, 1997), food (Cherry-Chandler, 2009), family communication (Pelias, 2002), race (Myers, 2008), and gender (Bell, 2005). Performance studies asks how might these be understood as performances.…”