| Abstract: | This article questions the logic of ethnographic inquiry that seeks to make gay and lesbian subjects seen and heard. I consider poststructural and queer challenges to ethnography's project of representing subjects, experiences, and voices to suggest that inquiry into gay and lesbian subjects analyze practices as they are constituted in social and institutional locations. Queer theorists' explorations of the "open secret" and the "epistemology of the closet," characterized by circulations of knowledge and ignorance, point to a need to place the contours of (un)knowing at the center of inquiry. I turn to participants' readings of Introduction to Christianity, taught by a lesbian faculty member, to theorize the effects of religious and sexual open secrets in constituting her pedagogy. Based on the intangible circulations of knowledge and ignorance in and around her teaching, I posit possibilities for ethnography that engage with queer theory to understand the construction and effects of practices. |
