# Jack Halberstam [Wikipedia Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Halberstam) ( 1961 – ) ## Description American gender theorist whose *Female Masculinity* (1998) and *The Queer Art of Failure* (2011) theorize masculinity outside the male body and reclaim "failure," negativity, and wildness as anti-normative, anti-capitalist queer strategies, rather than deficits to be overcome. ## Key Tags #theorist #queer-theory #gender #queer-failure ## Essential Works - *Female Masculinity* (1998) - foundational study of masculinity as a set of gestures and codes not tied to the male body - *The Queer Art of Failure* (2011) - reclaims failure, forgetting, and negativity as queer counter-strategies against normative success ## Details Professor of gender studies and English (Columbia University), Halberstam's work moves fluidly between queer theory, popular culture, and animation/film criticism, treating cartoon and animated figures as sites of anti-normative embodiment. Central to a cluster of early-2000s queer theory scholars — alongside [[José Esteban Muñoz]] on queer utopia/failure and [[Judith Butler]] on gender performativity — reworking negativity and anti-normativity as queer resources rather than problems. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Queer Theory]] - central contemporary theorist of queer failure, wildness, and anti-normative gender ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators - [[José Esteban Muñoz]] - companion projects in early-2000s queer theory: Halberstam's "queer failure" alongside Muñoz's "queer utopia" - [[Judith Butler]] - Halberstam's gender theory builds on and extends Butler's account of gender performativity ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements %% none yet %% ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Halberstam, Jack. *The Queer Art of Failure*. Duke University Press, 2011. Central statement of queer failure as anti-normative strategy. ### Secondary Sources Bibliography "Special Issue: Jack Halberstam's *The Queer Art of Failure*." *The Other Journal*, no. 25, 2015. Collected critical responses to the book.