A visitation of difference: Randall Kenan and black queer theory

This essay is a consideration of the position of "region" in queer theory, particularly black queer theory. Although only minimal analysis has been directed at black gay cultural production, most attention given to black gay cultural production has focussed predominantly on urban areas/communities re-presented in films such as Tongues United and Paris Is Burning. This paper employs Randall Kenan's novel A Visitation of Spirits, which focusses on a black gay youth growing up in the rural African-American community of Tims Creek, North Carolina, to consider what cultural work is done when queer desire turns up in such an apparently unlikely and inhospitable place. Examining how region plays a role in the construction of centers and margins, this article argues against always shuffling queer desire "safely" off to the big city, and considers what transformative cultural work can be done on the "margins" of the queer world.