As previously discussed in this blog series, queerness challenges underlying assumptions and norms regarding the nature and meaning of intimacy; it challenges us to think more broadly and expansively about human relatedness and connection. The queer paradigm posited by Hammack et al. (2018) explores seven axioms across which these dominant narratives are challenged, elucidating the diversity and creativity inherent in queerness: “A queer paradigm challenges the normative privileging of...

The theory of queer temporality explores the non-normative life rhythms and alternative futures of queer experience. Heteronormative ideas of intimacy, family building, and reproduction often look different for those whose identities and experiences fall outside heteronormative paradigms. Queer temporality rises in part in opposition to the heteronormative institution of family itself to explore different ways of relating and being. The concept of queer time was most notable during the latter...

Elyn Saks’s Story The author and subject of the memoir The Center Cannot Hold , Elyn Saks, was diagnosed with schizophrenia during her first year of law school at Yale University. Despite her overall ability to achieve both academic and professional success over the course of her life, during psychotic episodes her level of functioning within her work, self-care, and relationships was markedly impaired and threatened the integrity of both her self and her endeavors. In the height of a...