The Queer Sixties - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415921686 ISBN 13: 9780415921688

Publisher: Routledge, 1999

Synopsis

The Queer Sixties assembles an impressive group of cultural critics to go against the grain of 1960s studies, and proposes new and different ways of the last decade before the closet doors swung open. Imbued with the zeitgeist of the 60s, this playful and powerful collection rescues the persistence of the queer imaginary.

About this title

About the Author:

Patricia Juliana Smith is Assistant Professor of English at UCLA.

From Publishers Weekly:

The bold premise of Smith's anthology is that contemporary lesbian and gay culture did not begin in June 1969 with the Stonewall riots. These 14 essays by "scholars trained as literary critics" do not form a social history, but "employ the methodologies of textual criticism to 'read' the queer iconography" present in much 1960s culture. Smith's contributors cover both obvious subjectsAlesbian pulp novels, the British playwright Joe Orton and Mart Crowley's The Boys in the BandAand surprising ones: Valerie Solanas and the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, Dusty Springfield's career and the homoeroticism of Jim Morrison. Smith's instinct that representations of homosexuality were not only prevalent in 1960s culture but clearly set the stage for the gay liberation movement is persuasive, and her choice of topics expands the parameters of how "queer culture" is conceptualized. At their best, the essays make astonishing, even brilliant associative leaps. In "Give Us a Kiss," Ann Shillinglaw links surrealism and sexual alienation in her dissection of the homoeroticism of the Beatles film A Hard Day's Night. In "Myra Breckenridge and the Pathology of Heterosexuality," Douglas Eisner uses New Left politics and feminism to explicate Gore Vidal's work. Unfortunately, many of the essays are shot through with the jargon of postmodern critical theory ("Solanas's attempt to resignify 'scum' in her manifesto must take into account its previous use by dominant discourses"), which may diminish the readership for this notable collection of essays. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0415921686
• ISBN 13: 9780415921688
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 300
• Editor: Smith Patricia Juliana