Queer Representations

by Duberman, Martin; City University of New York. Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies

• ISBN13: 9780814718834
• ISBN10: 0814718833
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-05-01
• Publisher: New York Univ Pr

Summary

Queer Representations celebrates the eclectic, diverse nature of gay and lesbian culture and its production.The volume begins by asking how we can interpret an image--is the image homosexual and if so, how can we understand it? Closely connected to its interpretation is how we visualize homosexuality, or, in Allen Ellenzweig's term, how we picture the homoerotic, the organizing principle of a section devoted to American cinema and performance in general. The crucial role of biography and autobiography is the central preoccupation of the next section, with essays on Radclyffe Hall, Langston Hughes, and Louisa May Alcott.Featuring many of the most respected figures in queer studies and contemporary queer literature, among them Dorothy Allison, Edmund White, Barbara Smith, Essex Hemphill, Michael Cunningham, Allen Ginsberg, Samuel R. Delany, Dale Peck, Jewelle Gomez, Joan Nestle, a final section explores the creation of queer literature, birthpangs, growing pains, and achievements.By emphasizing the interconnectedness of gay and lesbian lives and the literature which has been instrumental in defining, reconstructing, and representing these lives, this anthology serves as a diverse introduction to queer culture and literature.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Ephoros and Ritualized Homosexuality in Bronze Age Crete	p. 7
The "Frigid Eromenoi" and Their Wooers Revisited: A Closer Look at Greek Homosexuality in Vase Painting	p. 14
Pudicitia and Pueri: Roman Concepts of Male Sexual Experience	p. 25
Questions of Evidence: Commentary on Koehl, DeVries, and Williams	p. 39
Picturing the Homoerotic	p. 57
"Disagreeably Hidden": Construction and Constriction of the Lesbian Body in Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair	p. 69
Laughing Hysterically: Sex, Repression, and American Film Comedy	p. 85
More of a Man: Gay Porn Cruises Gay Politics	p. 105
Strange Brew: Hollywood and the Fabrication of Homosexuality in Tea and Sympathy	p. 116
Don't Talk with Your Eyes Closed: Caught in the Hollywood Gun Sights	p. 139
Transgender Mirrors: Queering Sexual Difference	p. 146
Negative Identifications: HIV-Negative Gay Men in Representation and Performance	p. 162
Ethics and Evidence in Gay Biography: American Composer Marc Blitzstein	p. 181
Re/Membering Langston: Homophobic Textuality and Arnold Rampersad's Life of Langston Hughes	p. 188
Rethinking the Mythic Mannish Radclyffe Hall	p. 197
Nineteenth-Century Discourses on Childhood Gender Training: The Case of Louisa May Alcott's Little Men and Jo's Boys	p. 209
Notes for a Queer Reading of Latin American Literature	p. 216
Toward an Art of Transvestism: Colonialism and Homosexuality in Puerto Rican Literature	p. 226
"Closets, Closets, and More Closets!": Elizabeth Bishop's Lesbianism	p. 247
I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life of Mabel Hampton as Told by a White Woman	p. 258
Horace Walpole's Forbidden Passion	p. 276
National Fantasies: Peeking into the Latin American Closet	p. 290
Living the Word/Looking for Home	p. 305
On the Real Violet Quill Club	p. 311
Waiting for the End of the World	p. 319
The Perils of Promotion	p. 322
Why I'm Not a Revolutionary	p. 326
Reminiscences of Pre-Stonewall Greenwich Village	p. 331
Write First, Then Live	p. 343
On the Beginnings of Lesbian Literature in the United States	p. 347
On Contemporary Lesbian Literature in the United States	p. 356
On the Beginnings of Gay Male Literature in the United States	p. 362
On Contemporary Gay Male Literature in the United States	p. 371
The Personal Is Political: Queer Fiction and Criticism	p. 378
Acknowledgments	p. 385
Contributors	p. 387
Permissions	p. 394
Index	p. 397
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.