Books like Queer Conflict Research — picked by fans

This book was one of the first books I read on queer International Relations (IR) during my PhD, and it convinced me – quite effortlessly – that queer IR was the intellectual home for me.

Weber articulates a vision of queer IR that does not aim to define what "queer IR" is. But I can’t help but think her contributions in the book – which foreground gender, sex, and sexuality, and the plural ways the international hinges on logics of normal/perverse – did that for me anyway. 

I love this book’s attention to the various analytical functions that queer can bring to IR: from the deconstructive methodology Weber cultivates, to the scrutinising of the simultaneously gendered, sexual, and racialised construction of the normal and/or perverse queer subject.

This book taught me about the necessity of doing queer research that not only challenges cisheteronormativity, but also colonialism and coloniality as well.

Rao’s book is a masterclass in transnational and transtemporal storytelling, narrating plural stories of the (post)colonial politics of queerness, gender, and sexuality. I was especially gripped by his chapter tracing the colonial spectres of atonement that underpin the British government’s apologies for anti-sodomy laws, which resonates with a broader homocolonial discourse Western countries have used to denounce former colonised countries as backward and queerphobic. 

Queer IR can and should attend to these imperial histories and afterlives, and how they are underpinned by and uphold particular gendered and sexual norms. This book shows how global politics is a story about (post)coloniality and queerness.

This was one of the first academic books I read that centred LGBTQ people as agents and actors of global politics, and to be fair, it’s probably one of the first within IR to do so.

As someone who first learnt about queer theory from the philosophical, abstract, and (let’s be honest) sometimes dense verbosity of poststructural queer thinkers, picking up Lavinas Picq and Thiel’s collection brought queer lives, in all their diversity, plurality, and embodiment, back into the picture.

Some of my favourite chapters include those on Pride events in the Amazon and the exploration of Indigenous experiences of queerness (Lavinas Picq), and the intersections of Muslim sexualities, modernity, and (neo-)colonialism (Rahman).

This book paved the way for more queer research, challenging the disciplinary confines of IR. 

This is a book that I was gifted by a mentor.

I was so pleased to read the work of a rising queer IR scholar doing work that continues Weber’s foundational critique of the colonial and heteronormative logics of normal/perverse that underpin global politics. 

In the book, Vernon focuses their attention on the colonial scripts of UK discourse on humanitarian intervention. I found myself agreeing at every turn with Vernon’s characterization of the UK’s scripting of "The Brutal Dictator," "The ISIL Terrorist," and "The British Self."

The book revealed to me the enduring power of colonialism and coloniality in global politics, and that queer IR must continue to scrutinize how these structures recruit queerness and heteronormativity in pernicious ways. 

A Beauty and the Beast retelling, set amid the upheaval of the Second World War, in which the Beast is a dragon and the protagonist is a person who doesn’t see why his daughter should take the rap for her father’s misdemeanour. Humane and compassionate, this story isn’t afraid of exploring the theology of sexuality, but it never gets bogged down in details, and it maintains its fairy-tale atmosphere while remaining grounded in time and place. I loved it.

Allyson’s book is a collection of essays on the intersection of queerness, identity, and pop culture—horror primarily. Which means, yeah, it was practically engineered for me.

I found much to love and much to relate to within these pages. The way she weaves together personal experience, horror tropes, and urban legends is masterful, and I found the descriptions of gatekeeping and how it results in questioning one’s identity/place in things to hit rather personally.

Do not read after dark! At least, don’t do so if you’re a scaredy-cat like me when it comes to ghost stories. That said, I found this story lovely and fun and steamy—when it wasn’t scaring the daylights out of me, that is. The premise is fabulous: a man moves to York, England, because he has inherited an old house there, which turns out to be super haunted. So who does he turn to for help? One of the many ghost-tour guides who roam the city telling their tales, of course. Turns out this particular guide—aside from being a highly sexy fellow with dyed-blue hair—can in fact see ghosts. And the ones in this house would rather murder the living than be politely ushered out.

The Memory Librarian is an adaptation of Monáe's 2018 emotion picture, Dirty Computer. Told in the icon's signature Afro-futuristic fashion, this unquestionably queer AF collection of sci-fi stories describes a dystopian world where dirty computers (people who stray from societal norms) are ostracized in the worse ways imaginable. What's even scarier, while the stories take place in the future, the premise isn't that far from our present-day reality.

Books that boast BIPOC themes are being banned at a record rate. And this year alone, over 200 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced into legislation. Just as Americans have banded together around their common causes, the inhabitants in Monáe's sci-fi saga unite as chosen family. Together they navigate technology, battle memory control, explore identity, and fight for freedom in a ruthless police state.

"Everything comes full circle. And time takes care of itself. Our work is the work of… show more.

The first time Rowan and the Huntress kissed, I half expected Rowan’s lips to stick to the Huntress’ face like a tongue on a light pole in winter.

Luckily, Rowan—the Belle in this Beauty and the Beast retelling—is a thawing influence, and the kiss progresses as kisses should. And thank goodness, as the Huntress desperately needs to be kissed. Isolated, cursed, and haunted by her own callousness, the lonely Huntress is separated from the world by her own past and a literal mile of frozen water.

But in the Huntress’ fortress of ice, love grows like the petals of a winter rose, and little kisses, like hope, spring eternal.

This is one of the best books of redemption I've ever read, about a man who did some truly horrible, some would say unforgivable things, and has been working hard the past several years to make amends for his wrongs, a journey he continues even as he meets the man who just might be the love of his life. All this in a beautifully built fantasy world, and while it is book two in the series it stands on its own just fine. When it comes to tales of redemption and forgiveness, though, of facing a sordid past and working to overcome it, this book continues to set the bar for me.