In Dirty Dragging, Evelyn Annuß reformulates queer theorizations of drag, exploring the ambivalence of transgressive performances under apartheid, Nazism, and Jim Crow through a transoceanic lens. Taking up the ambivalence of “dirty” performance modes spanning drag and carnival to propaganda, she extends readings of gender bending by incorporating perspectives on blackface and “racialized drag.” She thereby explores violent, locally specific mobilizations of the transgressive along with the ways in which queer and creolized forms of performance intertwine to oppose identitarian boundaries. Given the current slide into right-wing authoritarianism, the book thus gestures toward the potential joy of collectively making societal conditions dance.
