Joyful Subjects

The contributors to this special issue explore joy and happiness as political issues deserving of critical analysis, arguing that joy is always related to power and empowerment, and that the presence or absence of joy is mediated by race, gender, and other identity categories. The notion of joy is upswelling in popular culture—even amid the trauma and pain experienced by individuals and communities due to pervasive inequity built over hundreds of year of racist, sexist, ableist, trans- or fat-phobic mistreatment, there is joy in the small moments of ordinary life as well as the grand gestures of resistance.

Contributors: Fernanda Carrera, Rosalind Gill, Mehita Iqani, Ace Lehner, Shani Orgad, Beatriz Polivanov, Srila Roy, Stella Viljoen