Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies

by Barr, Marleen S.

• ISBN13: 9780877457039
• ISBN10: 0877457034
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Iowa Pr

Summary

What do Amsterdam prostitutes, NASA astronauts, cross-dressing texts, andStar Trek characters have in common? InGenre Fission,Marleen Barr wittily and eccentrically revitalizes cultural and literary theory by examining the points where such vastly different categories meet, converge, and reemerge as something new.

Table of Contents

Introduction: ``The Grand Mix'' or Who Wears the White Hats When the Barbie Liberation Organization Strikes Back?	ix
I. PRIVATE LIVES: PEACEFUL COEXISTENCES
Bridging the Dead Father's Canonical Divide: Max Apple, Saul Bellow, Edgar Allan Poe, and Lynn Redgrave Form a Textual Cross-Dresser Support Group	3	(17)
``All Good Things'': The End of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the End of Camelot, and the End of the Tale about Woman as Handmaid to Patriarchy-as-Superman	20	(12)
Shutting the Bestial Mouth: Confessions of Male Clones and Girl Gangs	32	(41)
II. Public Displays: Sexed Spectacles
Night Watch in Amsterdam's Red Light District: Prostitutes/Dutch Windows/Utopian and Dystopian Gazes	73	(13)
Los York/New Angeles: ``New York, New York, a Helluva Town'' Sings ``I Wish They All Could Be California Girls''	86	(33)
American Middle-Class Males Mark the Moon: Retrospectively Reading the Apollo Program or Lorena Bobbitt vs. the Saturn 5	119	(18)
III. Premier Discourses: First Times
Women ``Churtening'' via the Cha Cha: Ursula K. Le Guin and Hispanic-American Authors Write to the Same Rhythm	137	(28)
Wrapping the Reichstag vs. Rapping Racism or ``A Colored Kind of White People'': Black/White/Jew/Gentile	165	(27)
Playing with Time: The Holocaust as ``A Different Universe of Discourse''	192	(31)
Epilogue Discourse as Black Hole --- and as Liberated Light	223	(18)
Notes	241	(8)
Works Cited	249	(14)
Index	263