In Feels Right Kemi Adeyemi presents an ethnography of how black queer women in Chicago use dance to assert their physical and affective rights to the city. Adeyemi stages the book in queer dance parties in gentrifying neighborhoods, where good feelings are good business. But feeling good is elusive for black queer women whose nightlives are undercut by white people, heterosexuality, neoliberal capitalism, burnout, and other buzzkills. Adeyemi documents how black queer women respond to these conditions: how they destroy DJ booths, argue with one another, dance slowly, and stop partying altogether. Their practices complicate our expectations that life at night, on the queer dance floor, or among black queer community simply feels good. Adeyemi's framework of "feeling right" instead offers a closer, kinesthetic look at how black queer women adroitly manage feeling itself as a complex right they should be afforded in cities that violently structure their movements and energies. What emerges in Feels Right is a sensorial portrait of the critical, black queer geographies and collectivities that emerge in social dance settings and in the broader neoliberal city.

Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient

About the Author
Kemi Adeyemi is Associate Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington and coeditor of Queer Nightlife.

Reviews
"Adeyemi's rich ethnographic observations on Black queer women's parties in Chicago demonstrate why the dance floor is much more than just a utopian promise of happiness within a hostile socio-political environment. . . . Through dancing and choreography, queerness is not only performed but also learned and experienced by people who may not have encountered it before." -- Yener Bayramoglu * Ethnic and Racial Studies *

"What is innovative about Adeyemi's text ... is that she carves out a scholarly field that reflects her interest in queer nightlife in the most expansive definition of the phrase. ... Feels Right is a political project that aims to drive many Black queer women to return to nightlife even if their pleasure is contested on the dance floor and in the city."

-- Marietta Kosma * European Journal of American Studies *



Book Information
ISBN 9781478018698
Author Kemi Adeyemi
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 272g