Worse Than Queer
By Zoë Agnew
Mimi Nguyen is well versed in writing for zines - online or in print.
Worse than Queer is her personal homepage, but she can't escape the
edgy tone and style of a zine. But she probably did not want to escape
this influence. Instead she embraces it, and she has created a personal
homepage that more resembles a personal manifesto - and she somehow
keeps it interesting.
Assuming that what she writes is truthful, Nguyen is finishing up
her Ph.D. at U.C. Berkeley where she is focusing on is Comparative
Ethnic Studies. Her manifesto describes her studies in even greater
detail as:
a Designated Emphasis on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Her dissertation
work focuses on U.S. Vietnamese cultural production and the politics
of diasporic citizenship. She is also working on projects examining
the politics of race and sex in reproductive rights discourse, sex-positive
feminisms, digital technologies, riot grrrl, drag and other spaces
of performance and performativity.
This is in her section entitled "manifesto for my revolution."
Now this part of her revolution reads more like a resume than inspiring
propaganda. More specifically, this section reads like an academic
Curriculum Vitae.
As we know from reading her semi-frequent journal entries, Nguyen's
style of politics has changed over the years, even if her focus has
not. She is fundamentally concerned with queer and race politics,
and the relationship between these movements. But now she is very
much entwined with the academic approach to these questions, and perhaps
less on the visibly radical front.
Nguyen seems to have some deep ambivalence about this, since this
is a frequent topic in her writings. But her vocal grappling with
her ambivalence makes for a very interesting read. Worse Than Queer
is a personal site of an individual that is just about as far from
the boring and self-centered nature of most homepages out there. Let's
just hope that Nguyen never sets up a webcam.