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. |
From inside the book
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Page 2
... women's studies and lesbian and gay studies , it is this classic . Still widely anthologized , Rich wrote her poetic polemic with women's studies students and faculty as her intended audience . She wrote to change minds : to decrease ...
... women's studies and lesbian and gay studies , it is this classic . Still widely anthologized , Rich wrote her poetic polemic with women's studies students and faculty as her intended audience . She wrote to change minds : to decrease ...
Page 3
... woman can become a lesbian . Lesbians are made , not born . In making this choice , women aren't choosing a sexuality so much as they are choosing to reject patriarchy . Heterosexuality isn't a choice for women but collaboration with ...
... woman can become a lesbian . Lesbians are made , not born . In making this choice , women aren't choosing a sexuality so much as they are choosing to reject patriarchy . Heterosexuality isn't a choice for women but collaboration with ...
Page 4
... women as an institution , a frequently violent and always coercive social construction , rather than as a natural ... women's studies syllabus , Rich is lesbian theory . Lesbian theo- rists , however , have largely rejected her arguments ...
... women as an institution , a frequently violent and always coercive social construction , rather than as a natural ... women's studies syllabus , Rich is lesbian theory . Lesbian theo- rists , however , have largely rejected her arguments ...
Page 5
... women , Ferguson questions Rich's definitional strategies and her broadly inclusive claims about lesbian identity . She does this by setting out five different defini- tions of lesbian identity , including Rich's and her own , that ...
... women , Ferguson questions Rich's definitional strategies and her broadly inclusive claims about lesbian identity . She does this by setting out five different defini- tions of lesbian identity , including Rich's and her own , that ...
Page 6
... women with men . Instead , it made real a vision of the equality of women with our Selves . It defined equality as being equal to those women who have been for women , those who have lived for women's freedom and those who have died for ...
... women with men . Instead , it made real a vision of the equality of women with our Selves . It defined equality as being equal to those women who have been for women , those who have lived for women's freedom and those who have died for ...
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