Qualities of Queer Imagination: Animating the Pedagogical Promise of Queer Creativity and Potentiality

Abstract

This article aims to explore characteristics of queer imagination that cultivate alternative desires and bodily relationships, making them more tangible as possible alternatives. By doing so, it provides an opportunity for educators to think about the pedagogical qualities of queer imagination and how they can offer alternative perceptual strategies that overcome limitations imposed by a recent influx of far-right laws and initiatives. It explores possible aesthetic and pedagogical models based on queer imagination that resist preestablished and essentialized understandings of how things are. The implications of this pedagogy indicate how educators and students might become queer connoisseurs who appreciate the ephemeral queerness of art objects. These queer imaginative strategies for envisioning alternative life possibilities should be of special interest to those interested in supporting the experience of queer students.