How To Subvert the Straight Line encompasses both textual and performative forms of dissemination, showcasing Tjerre Lucas Bijker's research on the commodification of subversive and queer identities in fashion. At the core of this publication lies the essay titled ‘Subverting the Straight-Line: Notes on the Repression of the Queer Body in Capital and Liberating Tactics of Subversion,’ while interwoven within its narrative are three additional publications that serve to activate, react, and embody its proposed methods.
Introduction | To Manifest: A Body of Knowledge that Radiates Resistance
In a society that asks, at times forcibly and at other times with a simple gentle push, all to conform to singular ideal of what it means to be human, few things are as alarming as the ones that, at times forcibly and at other times gently, opt to push back. The thought of such deviance is captivating though, magnetic even, perhaps both because it offers us a change to understand the narrow straight-line we are forced to walk on, but also because it offers us a change to exist far beyond its confines. The line scares us. The line re-orientates us. The line reduces us. The line flattens us. In a situation that seems so dire. So, bleak. And so, dark. One can indeed ask themselves, ‘How To Subvert the Straight-line?’
To give answer to such a question, requires delving into the complexities of the line and the complexities of the ones that aim to defy it. It requires exploring, challenging, and expanding our understanding of queerness on- and off-the-line, as well as understanding how processes of commodification throughout the capitalist world system seem to have depoliticized the oblique and disorientating nature of queerness. Finally, it would require the design and dissemination of a set of liberating tactics that are able to un-straighten and queer the straight line.
How To Subvert the Straight Line encompasses all three of these dimensions. At its core lies the essay ‘Subverting the Straight-Line: Notes on the Repression of the Queer Body in Capital and Liberating Tactics of Subversion,’ while interwoven within its narrative are three additional publications that serve to activate, react, and perform its proposed methods. The comprehensive presentation of these materials offers a multidimensional exploration of the subject matter, inviting readers to engage with both theoretical analysis and practical manifestations through which they may find themselves beyond the confines of the line.
Once we find ourselves off-the-line, our intensities, passions, and knowledges flow body to body, creating resonances so thick that they transit in-between and at times embrace bodies and worlds. Resonances so thick, they create new disorientating lines where bodies of knowledge will radiate resistance.