Gay and After: Gender, Culture and Consumption by Alan Sinfield
Late 20th-century ideas of gayness have become more complex. Gay communities are vilified over AIDS, courted as consumers, urged to be queer and/or bisexual. Acclaimed writer and academic Alan Sinfield explores, partly through fiction and film, how gay identities have been constituted and how they may change in the future. Editorial Reviews Amazon.com Review One of the paradoxical triumphs of the gay liberation movement is that it lead directly to a world in which the freedom to be gay allowed women and men to act and define themselves in ways that broke from traditional gay culture. In a culture where gay people are raising families and heterosexuals are seeking more and more freedom from sexual and gender restraints, what does gay mean? In Gay and After, British cultural commentator Alan Sinfield is interested in how gay identity is constructed--or even possible--in a time of extreme social and political contradiction. Gay people are reviled, yet perceived as a lucrative consumer market; they have more freedom than ever before, but are constantly told by the dominant culture to be private. Sinfield shifts through a broad range of high and popular culture--from Stephen Spender and Jean Genet to the Pet Shop Boys and The Wedding Banquet; from ACT UP and S-M to Bruce Bawer's A Place at the Table and Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance--to try to discover patterns in the endless cracking and dissolution of a once seemingly cohesive culture and identity. Gay and After is tentative in the best sense of the word: Sinfield, with political insight and cultural acumen, is an intrepid adventurer in this new territory and he never tires of exploring new theories and explanations and seeing what makes sense. --Michael Bronski From Library Journal A number of books have been published recently that focus on what it means to be gay at the turn of the millennium (e.g., Gay Men at the Millennium, edited by Michael Lowenthal, LJ 9/5/97). This contribution by Sinfield (English and cultural studies, Univ. of Sussex; The Wilde Century, LJ 8/1/94) is one of liveliest and most perceptive. Using a variety of well-chosen texts and literary works leavened with popular culture, Sinfield makes a persuasive argument that the post-gay society need[s] to entertain more varied and permeable lesbian and gay identities [while maintaining] a purposeful, informed, and critical subculture, even though the cohesiveness of that subculture is now dissipating. The author draws comparisons between gays and ethnic and racial minorities and examines a range of cultural perspectives, for example conformist vs. transgressive behavior relative to the straightgeist and consumer economics. Sinfield manages to present literary criticism with a subtle wit that avoids pedantry while remaining firmly grounded in scholarly discourse. North American readers will especially appreciate the frank, refreshing viewpoint of this British writer. Highly recommended for academic and special gay studies and human sexuality collections, as well as larger public libraries.?Richard Violette, Special Libraries Cataloging, Victoria, BC Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Binding: Paperback
Published by: Serpent's Tail: , 2000
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ISBN: 9781852425883 | 1852425881
256 pages.
Book Condition: Very Good
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