Newsweek publishes essay by UB art historian on the role of activist fashion and queer culture

An essay in Newsweek by Johathan Katz, a UB art historian and director of the doctoral program in visual studies, looks at the role activist fashion plays in queer culture. “While queers had traditionally identified each other through various kinds of queer uniforms (including literal uniforms) for purposes of solidarity, visibility, and not least sexual intimacy, these queer fashions used color, fabric and tailoring to declare solidarity, not literal declarations,” he writes. “But soon, speech act fashions were sold at Act Up and Queer Nation protests, and at marches and rallies, and literally every new activist organization or affiliated group made the design and manufacture of a t-shirt bearing a slogan among their very first acts.”

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http://www.newsweek.com/birth-queer-t-shirt-226598