1st Edition

The Dark Side of Camp Aesthetics Queer Economies of Dirt, Dust and Patina

Edited By Ingrid Hotz-Davies, Franziska Bergmann, Georg Vogt Copyright 2018
    208 Pages
    by Routledge

    208 Pages 23 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    "Camp" is often associated with glamour, surfaces and an ostentatious display of chic, but as these authors argue, there is an underside to it that has often gone unnoticed: camp’s simultaneous investment in dirt, vulgarity, the discarded and rejected, the abject. This book explores how camp challenges and at the same time celebrates what is arguably the single most important and foundational cultural division, that between the dirty and the clean. In refocusing camp as a phenomenon of the dark underside as much as of the glamorous surface, the collection hopes to offer an important contribution to our understanding of the cultural politics and aesthetics of camp.

    Introduction: "The dirt doesn’t get any worse": The Alliance of Camp and Dirt



    Ingrid Hotz-Davies, Georg Vogt and Franziska Bergmann



    Part I: Upside – Downside – Upside: Camp’s Dialectic of Dirt and Beauty





    1. The Jewel in the Gutter: Camp and the Incorporation of Dirt



    Ingrid Hotz- Davies





    2. Camp Conquests:



    Deconstructing the Sublime in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert



    Christian Lassen





    3. "The Odd and Gory Things in Life":



    Roy Raz’ Music Videos and Camp Aesthetics



    Gero Bauer





    4. Camp as a Critical Strategy in And the Spring Comes



    Zairong Xiang









    Part II: Trash, Dirt and Leftovers: The Oscillations of Matter



    5. The "Available" Joe Brainard



    David Bergman





    6. Dirty Sound: The Camp Materialism of Blood Orgy of the Leather Girls



    Kristina Pia Hofer





    7. Camping Out in the Detritus of the 1960s Queer Underground:



    The "Moldy" Fantasies of Jack Smith



    Ronald Gregg





    8. A Camp Fairy Tale:



    The Dirty Class of John Waters’ Desperate Living



    Giulia Palladini





    9. Malapropos Desires: The Cinematic Oikos of Grey Gardens



    Georg Vogt



    Part III: Debris of the Past





    10. Camp Patina: Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, Transvestism and Gründerzeit Furniture



    Franziska Bergmann





    11. Camping Indigeneity: The Queer Politics of Kent Monkman



    Astrid M. Fellner





    12. Innocence Unprotected: Camp in Yugoslavian Cinema



    Milisava Petković

    Biography

    Ingrid Hotz-Davies is Professor of English Literature and Gender Studies and co-director of the Centre for Gender and Diversity Research at the University of Tübingen, Germany.



    Georg Vogt is Lecturer at the Institute for Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria.



    Franziska Bergman is Junior Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Trier, Germany.

    "This collection makes a compelling case for camp’s materiality and affinity with the filthy and the queer. Engaging with and moving beyond previous Anglo-American debates (What defines camp taste? Is camp queer?), the contributors offer a more expansive range of examples of camp strategies, economies, and modalities than previously available, and demonstrate the urgency of reparative queer ways of reading and attaching to popular cultural texts." -Nicholas de Villiers, University of North Florida and author of Opacity and the Closet: Queer Tactics in Foucault, Barthes, and Warhol

    "This collection of essays gives insight into interlocking complexities of liminality of camp aesthetics and queer politics of bad taste. In the critical and comprehensive discussions, the authors exhibit varied approaches from literary studies to film studies, providing a valuable archive of camp’s performative practices and its alliance with abjection. The book is an essential contribution to cultural studies that explores the fascinating and open-ended world of camp sensibility." -Justyna Stepien, Szczecin University, Poland