"Pairing seemingly disparate events Barack Obama's presidential election and California's gay marriage ban Rohrer explores troubled and troubling histories of U.S. exceptionalism, civil rights discourse, reproduction, and blood logics. In the process, she challenges readers to rethink concepts of time, progress, citizenship, sovereignty, justice, and imagined futures. Drawing on Indigenous, queer, critical race, feminist, and disability studies, this timely resource deftly critiques ableism, heterosexism, racism, and the politics of governmentality. Highly recommended." - Susan Burch, Associate Professor of American Studies, Middlebury College, USA
"This is an exemplary interdisciplinary text that cautions many political movements against being seduced by the promise of recognition as full citizens if we only act 'normal.' Rohrer demonstrates how moves towards normalcy reify white, heteronormative, settler colonial, and ableist ideals about progress. Through critical readings of gay marriage campaigns and narratives about Obama's presidency as the culmination of civil rights, this book provokes us to imagine, relationally, much more than inclusion within the nation." - Maile Arvin, Ph.D., University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow in Ethnic Studies, UC Riverside, USA
"Judy Rohrer weaves together a fascinating set of ideas and events: the election of Barack Obama; the Proposition 8 struggle in California; the colonization of Hawai'i; the politics of disabilities. She pulls all this together through Foucault's analysis of biopower and her own trenchant rethinking of citizenship. Rohrer helps us to imagine ways of doing our citizenship that refuse the expectations of authorities while thinking critically about how we want to live with one another." - Kathy E. Ferguson, Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies, University of Hawai'i, USA
