"temporal drag"

My friend Kate just wrote me this note: “I came across a term in a book that I read recently that is a fascinating combination of your scholarly work and my scholarly work. The term? ‘Temporal drag.’ Elizabeth Freeman describes it as ‘a countergenealogical practice of archiving culture’s throwaway objects, including outmoded masculinities and femininities from which usable pasts may be extracted.’ If you apply this also to a culture’s throwaway fashions as well, then it gets even more interesting, I think. Someday, there could be a collaborative project here for us.”

This term is definitely something that needs to be explored in relation to fashion politics and representation, and I think it’s especially useful to my research on queer femininity and performances of retro style. The first thing that leaps to mind is my love for the 1950s housewife artifice performed and (re)appropriated by tough contemporary femmes…