Gay And Lesbian Literary Heritage

The revised edition of The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage is a reader's companion to this impressive body of work. It provides overviews of gay and lesbian presence in a variety of literatures and historical periods; in-depth critical essays on major gay and lesbian authors in world literature; and briefer treatments of other topics and figures important in appreciating the rich and varied gay and lesbian literary traditions. Included are nearly 400 alphabetically arranged articles by more than 175 scholars from around the world. New articles in this volume feature authors such as Michael Cunningham, Tony Kushner, Anne Lister, Kate Millet, Jan Morris, Terrence McNally, and Sarah Waters; essays on topics such as Comedy of Manners and Autobiography; and overviews of Danish, Norwegian, Philippines, and Swedish literatures; as well as updated and revised articles and bibliographies.

The revised edition of The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage is a reader's companion to this impressive body of work. It provides overviews of gay and lesbian presence in a variety of literatures and historical periods; in-depth critical essays on major gay and lesbian authors in world literature; and briefer treatments of other topics and figures important in appreciating the rich and varied gay and lesbian literary traditions. Included are nearly 400 alphabetically arranged articles by more than 175 scholars from around the world. New articles in this volume feature authors such as Michael Cunningham, Tony Kushner, Anne Lister, Kate Millet, Jan Morris, Terrence McNally, and Sarah Waters; essays on topics such as Comedy of Manners and Autobiography; and overviews of Danish, Norwegian, Philippines, and Swedish literatures; as well as updated and revised articles and bibliographies.

Although it has been proven posthumously by scholars that Willa Cather had lesbian relationships, she did not openly celebrate lesbian desire, and even today is sometimes described as homophobic and misogynistic. What, then, can a reassessment of this contentious first lady of American letters add to an understanding of the gay identities that have emerged in America over the past century? As Marilee Lindemann shows in this study of the novelist's life and work, Cather's sexual coming-of-age occurred at a time when a cultural transition was recasting love between women as sexual deviance rather than romantic friendship. At the same time, the very identity of "America" was characterized by great instability as the United States emerged as a modern industrial nation and imperial power. Indeed, both terms, "queer" and "America," achieved fresh ideological potency at the turn of the century. Willa Cather: Queering America is an enlightening unpacking of Cather's writings, from her controversial love letters of the 1890s--in which "queer" is employed to denote sexual deviance--to her epic novels, short stories, and critical writings. Lindemann points to the "queer" qualities of Cather's fiction--rebellion against traditional fictional form, with sometimes unlikable characters, lack of emphasis on heroic action, and lack of engagement in the drama of heterosexual desire.

One of the most urgent tasks for gay studies today, James Creech argues, is the retrieval of a repressed, "closeted" literary heritage. But contradictions and problems cloud even the most basic theoretical questions: What does a lesbian or gay reading of a literary text require or presume? Can we talk about a homosexual writer expressing him- or herself before the invention of "homosexuality"? Was it possible for a writer like Herman Melville, for example, to create literary works linked to his own prohibited eros? In Closet Writing/Gay Reading, Creech shows how a literary critic can be receptive to implicit and closeted sexual content. Forcefully advocating a tactic of identification and projection in literary analysis, he lends renewed currency to the kind of "sentimental" response to literature that continental theory—particularly deconstruction—has sought to discredit. In the second half of his book, Creech sets out to analyze what he considers the exemplary novel of the nineteenth-century closet, Melville's Pierre, or: The Ambiguities. By approaching Pierre as the gay man Melville longed to have as its reader, Creech is able to decipher the novel's "encrypted erotics" and to reveal that Melville's apparent tale of incest is actually a homosexual novel in disguise. The closeted "address" to queer-sensitive readers that Pierre disseminates finally receives a critical reading that strives to be explicit, shareable, and public.

The Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies surveys the field in some 470 entries on individuals (Adrienne Rich); arts and cultural studies (Dance); ethics, religion, and philosophical issues (Monastic Traditions); historical figures, periods, and ideas (Germany between the World Wars); language, literature, and communication (British Drama); law and politics (Child Custody); medicine and biological sciences (Health and Illness); and psychology, social sciences, and education (Kinsey Report).

History of gay and lesbian literature -- Reader's advisory service -- Classics -- General fiction -- HIV/AIDS and other health issues -- Historical fiction -- Romance -- Fantasy -- Science fiction -- Horror -- Mystery -- Graphic novels -- Drama -- Life stories : biography, autobiography, and memoirs

From a writer of astonishing versatility and erudition, the much-admired literary critic, novelist, short-story writer, and scholar (“Dazzling”—The Washington Post; “One of those rare writers who seems to be able to work on any register, any time, any atmosphere, and make it her own” —The Observer), a book that explores the little-known literary tradition of love between women in Western literature, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Agatha Christie, and many more. Emma Donoghue brings to bear all her knowledge and grasp to examine how desire between women in English literature has been portrayed, from schoolgirls and vampires to runaway wives, from cross-dressing knights to contemporary murder stories. Donoghue looks at the work of those writers who have addressed the “unspeakable subject,” examining whether such desire between women is freakish or omnipresent, holy or evil, heartwarming or ridiculous as she excavates a long-obscured tradition of (inseparable) friendship between women, one that is surprisingly central to our cultural history. Donoghue writes about the half-dozen contrasting girl-girl plots that have been told and retold over the centuries, metamorphosing from generation to generation. What interests the author are the twists and turns of the plots themselves and how these stories have changed—or haven’t—over the centuries, rather than how they reflect their time and society. Donoghue explores the writing of Sade, Diderot, Balzac, Thomas Hardy, H. Rider Haggard, Elizabeth Bowen, and others and the ways in which the woman who desires women has been cast as not quite human, as ghost or vampire. She writes about the ever-present triangle, found in novels and plays from the last three centuries, in which a woman and man compete for the heroine’s love . . . about how—and why—same-sex attraction is surprisingly ubiquitous in crime fiction, from the work of Wilkie Collins and Dorothy L. Sayers to P. D. James. Finally, Donoghue looks at the plotline that has dominated writings about desire between women since the late nineteenth century: how a woman’s life is turned upside down by the realization that she desires another woman, whether she comes to terms with this discovery privately, “comes out of the closet,” or is publicly “outed.” She shows how this narrative pattern has remained popular and how it has taken many forms, in the works of George Moore, Radclyffe Hall, Patricia Highsmith, and Rita Mae Brown, from case-history-style stories and dramas, in and out of the courtroom, to schoolgirl love stories and rebellious picaresques. A revelation of a centuries-old literary tradition—brilliant, amusing, and until now, deliberately overlooked.

Take a look at how narrative has shaped gay and lesbian culture A Sea of Stories: The Shaping Power of Narrative in Gay and Lesbian Cultures: A Festschrift for John P. De Cecco is an unforgettable collection of personal narratives that explores the historical, psychological, and sociological contexts of homosexuality in locations ranging from Nazi Germany to Colorado. Some of the prominent authors in this collection include David Bergman, Louis Crew, Diana Hume George, and Ruth Vanita. Scholars in gay and lesbian studies, political movements, cultural studies, and narratology, and anyone interested in gay history will want to explore these intriguing narratives on topics such as sex and sin in the South, selling gay literature before Stonewall, growing up gay in India, and the story of an interracial male couple facing homophobic ignorance in a small town. A Sea of Stories also contains creative fiction and nonfiction love stories, war stories, oral stories, and bibliographies, and a beautiful post-Stonewell and post-modern narrative set on a South African seascape that tells the story of two professional men and the possibility of a kiss. For a complete list of contents, please visit our Web site at www.haworthpressinc.com. This book offers you a variety of narratives that cover a wide range, including: memoirs of gay Holocaust survivors and the emergence of the first lesbian and gay book club in its wake homophobia in the workplace and the use of coming-out stories to enhance workplace diversity the establishment of a gay/straight alliance in a Salt Lake City high school that is heavily dominated by Mormons gay literary heritage that examines the works of Langston Hughes as well as Martin Duberman, Paul Monette, and Edmund White in relation to the lesbian 70s creative nonfiction about a woman's love for another woman, her lifelong friend Provincetown's remarkable community response to the AIDS epidemic A collection of chapters written by the colleagues and former students of John P. De Cecco, pioneering editor of the Journal of Homosexuality, A Sea of Stories takes its title from a phrase Dr. De Cecco used in his keynote address to the “History and Memory” conference at Allegheny College in 1997. This conference sparked the idea for this collection of essays that examine the homosexual experience through historical, psychological, and sociological viewpoints and homosexuality in literature. These courageous stories will assist readers to know themselves more deeply, to identify wih others, and to interpret gay and lesbian experiences in different narrative forms.