Homonormativity, Global Lockdown, and the Seductions of Empire

As the killing of those at the margins of liberal and neoliberal sovereignty continues to be glamorized and fetishized in the name of ‘democracy,’ we are confronted with urgent questions about the ways in which life, death, and desire are being (re)con- stituted in the current political moment. The intensification of carnage wrought by empire has brought with it a renewed thrust to draw in precisely those who are the most killable into performing the work of murder. As we are seduced into empire’s fold by participating, often with glee and pleasure, in the deaths of those in our own communities as well as those banished to the ‘outsides’ of citizenship and subjectiv- ity, we must ask: How are these seductions produced and naturalized? What forms of (non)spectacular violence must be authorized to heed the promises being offered by empire? These are the central problematics this paper engages.