Michael Warner
Michael Warner is a social theorist and professo Queer Theory and the Board of Governors Professor of English at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. He is the author of Publics and Counterpublics (Zone Books, 2002); The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life (Harvard University Press, 2000); The English Literatures of America, 1500-1800 (Routledge, 1996); Fear of a Queer Planet (University of Minnesota Press, 1993); The Letters of the Republic (Harvard University Press, 1992). He also edited The Portable Walt Whitman (Penguin, 2003) and American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King, Jr. (Library of America, 1999).Superscript text1
Warner received a B.A. from Oral Roberts University; a M.A. from The University of Wisconsin (Madison) and a M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins.
He is a controversial public figure in the LGBT community, a position indicated in the title of his book The Trouble with Normal, which is a play on words and response to the book Virtually Normal by the well known blogger and conservative LGBT writer Andrew Sullivan. Warner contends that Queer Theory and the ethics of a queer life serve as critiques of existing social and economic structures, not just as critiques of heterosexuality and heterosexual society.
Warner coined the term heteronormativity in an article published in the journal Social Text, entitled, "Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet" (Social Text, 1991; 9 (4 [29]): 3-17.)
Warner, along with Eve Sedgwick and Judith Butler is one of the first queer theorists.
Warner is also the Director of the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University.