Image Credit: LGBTIQ pride march, Timor-Leste. Photo by Tanushree Rao on Unsplash

For Pride Month 2021, this list brings together a tremendous breadth of LGBTQ+ readings in terms of topical, disciplinary and geographical scope. Most works included here are recent contributions from the social sciences and cultural critique that range from in-depth research-based monographs treating a particular question in great empirical detail (e.g. Carla A. Pfeffer, 2017) to compendia of shorter interventions offering plural insights onto LGBTQ+ lives, struggles and joys (e.g. Michael J. Bosnia et al, 2020).

In their diversity, these 20 books also present methodological treatises for researchers as much as commentaries and in many cases critical introspections for the curious to consider. They do not shy away from difficult subjects, and many particularly excel at addressing important, albeit too-often-overlooked, intersectional perspectives, from queer perspectives on policing to EU expansion to social movements across the Global South. This list, even in its expansiveness, still cannot be exhaustive as there are as many queer stories to tell as there are queer people; and queer people, of course, are everywhere.

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique. Sa’ed Atshan. Stanford University Press. 2020. 

Black Queer Freedom: Spaces of Injury and Paths of Desire. GerShun Avilez. University of Illinois Press. 2020. 

Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies. Joanne Barker (ed.). Duke University Press. 2017. 

The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics. Michael J. Bosia, Sandra M. McEvoy and Momin Rahman (eds). Oxford University Press. 2020. 

Lesbian Geographies: Gender, Place and Power. Kath Browne and Eduarda Ferreira (eds). Routledge. 2018. 

Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies. Howard Chiang and Alvin K. Wong (eds). Routledge. 2020. 

Other, Please Specify: Queer Methods in Sociology. D’Lane Compton, Tey Meadow and Kristen Schilt (eds). University of California Press. 2018.

• Read the LSE Review of Books review of this title.

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Queer Festivals: Challenging Collective Identities in a Transnational Europe. Konstantinos Eleftheriadis. Amsterdam University Press. 2018. 

Imagining Queer Methods. Amin Ghaziani and Matt Brim (eds). NYU Press. 2019. 

Queering the Countryside: New Frontiers in Rural Queer Studies. Mary L. Gray, Colin R. Johnson and Brian J. Gilley (eds). NYU Press. 2016. 

Queer Times, Black Futures. Kara Keeling. NYU Press. 2019. 

Queer in Africa: LGBTQI Identities, Citizenship, and Activism. Zethu Matebeni, Surya Monro and Vasu Reddy (eds). Routledge. 2018.

Queer Methods and Methodologies: Intersecting Queer Theories and Social Science Research. Kath Browne and Catherine J. Nash (eds). Routledge. 2016. 

Routledge Handbook of Queer African Studies. S.N. Nyeck (ed.). Routledge. 2020. 

Queer in the Tropics: Gender and Sexuality in the Global South. Pedro Paulo Gomes Pereira. Springer. 2019. 

Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men. Carla A. Pfeffer. Oxford University Press. 2017. 

Growing Up Queer: Kids and the Remaking of LGBTQ Identity. Mary Robertson. NYU Press. 2018. 

Queer Histories and the Politics of Policing. Emma K. Russell. Routledge. 2020. 

The EU Enlargement and Gay Politics: The Impact of Eastern Enlargement on Rights, Activism and Prejudice. Koen Slootmaeckers, Heleen Touquet and Peter Vermeersch (eds). Palgrave. 2016. 

The Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies. Siobhan B. Somerville (ed.). Cambridge University Press. 2020. 

This Pride Month reading list is a companion piece to the LSE community’s 2021 reading list that was compiled with Spectrum, LSE’s LGBTQ+ staff network, to celebrate International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. Discover more of our recommended reads here!

Note: This reading list gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Banner Image Credit: ‘Pride flag’ by Hanna Sörensson licensed under CC BY SA 2.0.