Un/Popular Culture: Lesbian Writing After the Sex WarsTheorizing lesbian, Kathleen Martindale writes, is like embarking on terra incognita. In this book, Martindale offers her lucidly written analysis as a guide through the complex and provocative terrain of lesbian literary and cultural theory. Using the publication of Adrienne Rich's Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence and the outbreak of the American sex wars as a starting point, Martindale traces the emergence of lesbian postmodernism and how lesbian-feminism changed from a popular to an un/popular culture and from a political vanguard into a cultural neo-avant garde. Martindale analyzes the theoretical implications of "creative" texts such as the graphic art and cultural commentary of Alison Bechdel and Diane DiMassa. She experiments in autobiography by Joan Nestle, and deconstructed lesbian genre fiction by Sarah Schulman to determine how these texts elaborate contemporary theoretical issues. These texts, she argues, are widely available and could be considered as postmodernist rewritings and revisions of the most characteristic and preferred lesbian-feminist modes of cultural expression. Her analysis raises poignant questions about how lesbians read, what they read, and what counts as lesbian theory. She concludes with a discussion of the status of queer pedagogy in academic institutions and what measures need to be taken to promote and safeguard its existence in what are often homophobic educational settings. |
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Page viii
... story , but a style of telling that is uniquely Martindale . By chapter 2 , the text becomes crowded with new imagined communities : comic book heros haunt academic conferences , theory takes a detour into the happenstance of its own ...
... story , but a style of telling that is uniquely Martindale . By chapter 2 , the text becomes crowded with new imagined communities : comic book heros haunt academic conferences , theory takes a detour into the happenstance of its own ...
Page 1
... story about how the American feminist sex wars over sexual representation in the early 1980s created lesbian category trou- ble , broke up the feminist cultural consensus , realigned lesbians with gay men and then brought forth the ...
... story about how the American feminist sex wars over sexual representation in the early 1980s created lesbian category trou- ble , broke up the feminist cultural consensus , realigned lesbians with gay men and then brought forth the ...
Page 2
... story , a myth of origins3 about a generational changing of the guards , marking and almost always celebrating a shift from the alleged inclusivity of the boast that " any woman can be a les- bian " to the much more exclusive and ...
... story , a myth of origins3 about a generational changing of the guards , marking and almost always celebrating a shift from the alleged inclusivity of the boast that " any woman can be a les- bian " to the much more exclusive and ...
Page 3
... story , " an interested tale about the relationship between lesbianism and feminism . " Since Rich wants to unite the two , to make lesbianism feminism's " magical sign , " she sometimes forges the link visually as well as rhetorically ...
... story , " an interested tale about the relationship between lesbianism and feminism . " Since Rich wants to unite the two , to make lesbianism feminism's " magical sign , " she sometimes forges the link visually as well as rhetorically ...
Page 13
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Contents
Paper Lesbians and Theory Queens | 33 |
Chapter 3 | 55 |
Chapter 4 | 77 |
Chapter 5 | 103 |
Chapter 6 | 137 |
Notes | 161 |
Bibliography | 195 |
Index | 213 |
Other editions - View all
Un/popular Culture: Lesbian Writing After the Sex Wars Kathleen Martindale No preview available - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Alison Bechdel American lesbian autobiography avant-garde Bechdel bian binary butch butch-femme chapter claims classroom Columbia University Press comic contemporary Deconstruction desire DiMassa discourse discussion Dykes To Watch erotic essay Faderman fantasy feminism feminist and lesbian femme film gay and lesbian gender heterosexual homophobia homosexuality Hothead Paisan Ibid intellectual issues Joan Nestle Judith Butler Kennedy and Davis Lacan lesbian and gay lesbian critics lesbian culture lesbian fiction lesbian identity lesbian literary lesbian postmodernism lesbian readers Lesbian Representation Lesbian Sexuality lesbian studies lesbian subject lesbian theory lesbian writing lesbian-feminism lesbian-feminist Monique Wittig negotiating Nestle's novel Paper Lesbians political Postmodern Queer Pedagogy queer theory question relationship Restricted Country Rich's Romantic friendship Routledge Sappho Sarah Schulman Sedgwick seems sex radicals sex wars Sexual Indifference sexual practices social Stimpson story subject positions Sue-Ellen Teresa de Lauretis texts theoretical theorists tion un/popular culture woman women women's studies working-class York zines