New book Queer Formalism: The Return by William J. Simmons is the first installment in the Critic’s Essay Series published by Floating Opera Press. Comprising long-form essays, this series gives voice to critics who offer thought-provoking ways in which to subvert or replace normative modes of discussing culture.

Queer Formalism: The Return expands upon William J. Simmons’s influential essay “Notes on Queer Formalism” from 2013 – originally published in Big, Red, and Shiny – offering novel ways of thinking about queer-feminist art outside of the critical-complicit and abstract-representational binaries that continue to haunt contemporary queer art. It therefore proposes a new kind of queer art writing, one that skirts the limits imposed by normative histories of art and film.

Artists addressed in Queer Formalism: The Return include: Sally Mann, David Lynch, Lars von Trier, Math Bass, Lorna Simpson, Laurie Simmons, Alex Prager, Lana Del Rey, Jessica Lange, and Louise Lawler, among others.

William J. Simmons was one of the speakers at FAST FORWARD: HOW DO WOMEN WORK? conference at Tate Modern in November, 2019.