C. Heike Schotten offers a critique of U.S. settler-colonial empire that draws on political, queer, and critical indigenous theory to reframe the concept of terrorism. She provides an anatomy of the War on Terror's moralism, arguing for a new interpretation of biopolitics that is focused on sovereignty and desire rather than racism and biology.

Schotten C. Heike :

C. Heike Schotten (PhD, Political Science, Notre Dame) is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is the author of Nietzsche’s Revolution: Decadence, Politics, and Sexuality (Palgrave, 2009) and has published articles in International Feminist Journal of Politics, Foucault Studies, New Political Science, Philosophy in the Contemporary World, differences, Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, Jadaliyya, and Politics and Gender. Her article “Nietzsche/Pentheus: The Last Disciple of Dionysus and Queer Fear of the Feminine” won the American Political Science Association’s 2009 Okin-Young Award in Feminist Political Theory.C. Heike Schotten is associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is the author of Nietzsche’s Revolution: Décadence, Politics, and Sexuality (2009).

Kevin Bruyneel, author of The Third Space of Sovereignty: The Postcolonial Politics of U.S.-Indigenous Relations:
C. Heike Schotten's Queer Terror masterfully synthesizes queer theory, political theory, settler-colonial studies, and native studies to explore the connection between the production of the 'savage' and 'terrorist' in settler colonial and imperial logics. In this innovative work, Schotten shows that what links them is a 'civilizational moralism of life and death' in which the biopolitical production of the indigenous and Islamic 'other' as the fundamental 'antagonists to life itself' is necessary for asserting the 'goodness and rationality' of settler sovereignty and U.S. empire. Through sophisticated readings of such thinkers as Michel Foucault, Thomas Hobbes, and Lee Edelman, Schotten makes the case that in this biopolitical context the radical, queer imperative is to refuse settler moralism by refusing the notion that the settler polity must survive. It means, given the choice set before us by settler sovereignty, to take the 'side of terrorism.'

Nadine Suleiman Naber, University of Illinois at Chicago:
Queer Terror provides one of the best genealogies of the war on terror I have ever read. By reconceptualizing biopower, Queer Terror insightfully reveals how Zionism, Islamophobia, and the war on terror have their origins in settler-colonial hatred of the 'savage.' Scholars and activists urgently need this book for its bold and brilliant map of U.S./Israeli empire as well as the radical queer possibilities for decolonization it inspires.

Cressida Heyes, former Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality, University of Alberta:
Queer Terror aims to bring together political theory and queer theory, and in this is very successful. It is extremely well argued and well written, defending an original and distinctive position that will be of interest to a wide range of radical scholars. Every few pages there is a jewel of an idea! The scholarship is excellent: texts are read carefully and deeply, while close readings are contextualized in larger literatures. The juxtaposition of political theory, queer theory, and decolonial theory is something we’ve been waiting for.

Gil Anidjar, Columbia University:
In this brilliantly iconoclastic tractate, Schotten poses the question of empire's desire. She returns, spectacularly, to Hobbes to disclose what we can no longer ignore: the settler colony has a moralizing hold on life itself, on time, and on desire. Schotten counters this 'punitive sanctimony' and its constitutive despair by offering uncompromising readings of Arendt and Edelman, deep reflections on native studies and on Islamophobia, and a remarkable genealogy of 'terrorism.' Throughout, she demonstrates, indeed, heightens, the urgency and significance of a queer political theory. This is a striking and original book, a stirring and energizing call for dissidence and liberation.