Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda (aka “AJP”)
Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda is a professor and currently teaches at the University of Houston in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies.
When not teaching, Dr. Pegoda is also committed to producing (public) scholarship. He specializes in History, Philosophy of History, Cultural Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Otherness, among other areas. He is currently working on several articles, including a few about film and history and a solicited article about the History of Neurofibromatosis. On this blog, Without Ritual, Autonomous Negotiations, Dr. Pegoda writes about culture, history, philosophy, rhetoric, teaching, writing, and much more and engages in conversations with people in the process. He also posts some of his photography occasionally! (The current comment policy for this website is located here.)
Finally, Dr. Pegoda is queer/gay, genderqueer, physically disabled, and a survivor of many tumors and five surgeries. He uses these (and other) identities, in addition to his experience as an educator and scholar and global citizen, to further embrace and model diversity and acceptance.
Please enjoy your stay on http://andrewpegoda.com, share links, leave comments, and visit often! And be sure to visit my other website, https://ajpsfavs.com, which houses an ever-growing collection of important articles cataloged by topic. Thanks!
Last updated: June 2017
Hi Andrew, thanks very much for connecting with me via my blog! I look forward to seeing your new posts! 🙂
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I just found your blog, I love it!
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Thank you!
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I’m honoured that a professor would enjoy my blog. I can’t wait to read yours. Maybe when you are in Edinburgh we can find a way to meet for a quick drink and chat!
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You’ve got a really great blog with many, many interesting posts! 🙂 The Edinburgh program is by distance education (it’s online but we have almost weekly sessions via Skype with the professors and others), so sadly I won’t be physically in Edinburgh, except for hopefully a visit or two at some point, but maybe then! 🙂
Thanks for your comment. Look forward to reading your blog more and talking to you more soon! 🙂
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Ok.. you are the culture and word guy so I can ask you this. I thought “queer” was a derogatory term yet I am lately seeing this being discussed… by yourself above as well. Again.. more politically correct stuff just to confuse old straight white people. Sorry.. this stuff just gets to me. I don’t want to offend people with specific social identities (especially being white and not having any negative cultural term identity myself that I couldn’t blow off) but the rules are constantly changing. What pisses people off one week is a term of endearment the next week. Grr…
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Hey, thanks for asking! It is for sure confusing and always changing. “Queer” in academic circles has been more and more popular for a few decades, and it’s gradually getting more popular elsewhere. Basically, it’s a process or reclaiming a negative word. This article does really well at explaining kind of what “queer” means and how it’s used. http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/03/difference-between-gay-queer/
It’s similar to how some women have reclaimed the word “bitch” in terms of say the Bitch Manifesto. (http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/bitch.htm). Minorities can take what is “negative” and make it a positive.
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Um… but isn’t this “reclaiming” derogatory slurs as a way of embracing differences a double standard smokescreen of sorts? I mean, it’s ok to use the word queer like it’s ok for blacks to refer to each other as nigger yet if any straight white folks use it it’s back to being called racist or homophobe? I dunno. Seems it’s all way more complicated than necessary. Interesting the “bitch” article was written back in the 60’s.
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“Queer” doesn’t have the baggage that the n-word has. And the way things work out is always weird and unpredictable. 🙂
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