Southwest Humanities is excited and proud to announce the recent publication (in August 2025) of another excellent Duke University Press title, As If!: Queer Criticism across Difference, by Chase Gregory. In As If!, Gregory explores a distinctive, stylistically vibrant form of early queer criticism—a mode they term “as if!” writing. Originating in the fraught context of the AIDS crisis, this approach adopts a playful, campy stance to probe identity across categories like race, gender, and sexuality. Gregory examines the work of pivotal thinkers, including Robert Reid-Pharr, Deborah McDowell, Barbara Johnson, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, to illustrate how their essays and critiques embrace cross-identifications that both illuminate and complicate fixed identities. Even when attempts at solidarity falter, “as if!” writing destabilizes normative understandings, inviting readers into a space where identification is generative precisely because it’s uncertain. Gregory calls for a renewed embrace of this mode, positioned as a politically potent model for contemporary cultural theory and critique. As If! proposes that the power of criticism lies not in fixed identification, but in its uncertain, experimental reach across difference. It will be a compelling resource for anyone invested in the theory and practice of queer, feminist, and intersectional criticism. For more information about this fresh and exciting new book, please see the publisher’s website here.
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