Race and Sexuality by Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, Brandon Andrew Robinson & Cristina Khan

Abstract

Race, gender, class, sexuality. Add religion and nationality to the list and you have the basic study blocks of a first-year sociology undergraduate course on social theory. We teach and think in these core sociological terms and seldom produce a thorough analysis on how they co-constitute social divisions. Intersectionality enables critical thinking on their interplay but more often than not we develop singular analyses that foreground one as being more important than the other. The authors of Race and Sexuality address this limitation in social research head on. They offer a rigorous overview of the disciplines that have grappled with ideas of race and sexuality to elucidate the uneven success of a wide range of literature in capturing their intertwined relationship. The book not only unpacks and illustrates the complex interconnection between race and class readings on one hand and gender and sexuality on the other but proposes racialized sexualities as a new area of study altogether.