RuPaul's Drag Race and Philosophy
Sissy That Thought
The first truly philosophical exploration of the drag queen in the context of this ground-breaking reality TV show.
As RuPaul has said, this is the Golden Age of Drag—and that's chiefly the achievement of RuPaul's Drag Race, which in its eleventh year is more popular than ever, and has now become fully mainstream in its appeal. The show has an irresistible allure for folks of all persuasions and proclivities. Yet serious or philosophical discussion of its exponential success has been rare.
Now at last we have RuPaul's Drag Race and Philosophy, shining the light on all dimensions of this amazing phenomenon: theories of gender construction and identity, interpretations of RuPaul's famous quotes and phrases, the paradoxes of reality shows, the phenomenology of the drag queen, and how the fake becomes the truly authentic. The book includes a Foreword by the original "Gender Outlaw" Kate Bornstein.
Hendrik Kempt is a Research Associate, FoKoS, University Siegen in Germany. He has authored several forthcoming articles on morality and AI. Megan Volpert is the author of many books on communication and popular culture, including two Lambda Literary Award finalists. After seven years as a nationally competitive debater, she competed in poetry slams for several more. Her MFA in Creative Writing is from Louisiana State University and she writes regularly for PopMatters. She has been teaching high school English in Atlanta for over a decade and was 2014 Teacher of the Year. She edited the American Library Association-honored anthology This Assignment Is So Gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching. She is co-editor of RuPaul's Drag Race and Philosophy (2020). Foreword author Kate Bornstein is known as the original "Gender Outlaw."
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