Greetings from Amazon.com Delivers Gay Studies FEATURED IN THIS E-MAIL: * "A Dialogue on Love," by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick * "Trying It Out in America," by Richard Poirier * "Dangerous Liaisons," edited by Eric Brandt * "Times Square Red, Times Square Blue," by Samuel Delany * "Ethan Green Exposed," by Eric Orner "A Dialogue on Love" by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/080702922X/entertainmentsit Queer studies owes its status as an academic discipline in large part to the literary criticism and theoretical writings of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (including, most famously, "Epistemology of the Closet"). In "A Dialogue on Love," she applies her skills to the analysis of a far more personal subject: herself. This stunningly intimate memoir is an exploration of Sedgwick's journey through therapy for depression, beginning 18 months after a diagnosis of breast cancer. She places her therapist's notes in dialogue with her own words, which take the 17-century Japanese form of haibun, traditionally reserved for travel narratives; a description of another work structured in this way applies equally to her own writing: "Spangled with haiku is more what it feels like, [the] very sentences fraying into implosions of starlike density or radiance, then out into a prose that's never quite not the poetry." "A Dialogue on Love" is an engaging, brilliantly constructed portrait of the unique intimacy between therapist and patient, exploring the intricate relationships between childhood precocity, positioning within the family, fantasy, sex, the body, depression, and attitudes toward death. Through these issues, Sedgwick comes to a highly personal, yet expansive, definition of sexuality inclusive of fantasy, autoeroticism, and cultural intimacy. "Trying It Out in America" by Richard Poirier http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374279411/entertainmentsit Among the figures Richard Poirier takes on in this collection of book reviews and critical essays are titans of America's queer literary tradition such as Walt Whitman and Gertrude Stein (plus, among more modern writers, Truman Capote and Frank O'Hara). But "Trying It Out in America" is not queer criticism, though the chapters on Balanchine's choreography and Bette Midler's 1975 Broadway musical revue certainly make such an interpretation tempting. There's a broader concern at stake, in that the objects of Poirier's attention are "in an always precarious, quite often faltering equilibrium. They hope to appeal to a large contemporary audience who buys, reads, and spreads the good word about books. At the same time they write in a fashion meant to be taken as original and likely to be thought difficult." Thus chapters appear on Gore Vidal's historical sagas and Norman Mailer's "Ancient Evenings" (deemed his "strangest book"), along with a consideration of outsider perspectives on America, including those of Jean Baudrillard and Martin Amis. The collection is hampered somewhat by the time- specific nature of many of the essays, which were first published as book reviews in journals such as the New York Review of Books. But as a time capsule of literary concerns of late-20th-century America, it is a sophisticated and intelligent read. "Dangerous Liaisons" edited by Eric Brandt http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565844556/entertainmentsit Many gays and lesbians have suffered from oppression in the United States; so have many African Americans. But their mutual suffering has not necessarily led to sympathy and collaboration--witness the sharp protests among some black leaders when queer activists compare their struggle to the civil rights movement, or the subtle exclusion of gays and lesbians of color from some activist organizations. The essays in "Dangerous Liaisons" all stem from the premise that this division is counterproductive in combating both racism and homophobia. Contributors include Henry Louis Gates Jr., Audre Lorde, Cornel West, and Samuel Delany. Jewelle Gomez describes the ways in which her acceptance in the black community has often been predicated upon suppressing her lesbianism, while Martin Duberman describes his experiences researching and writing his biography of Paul Robeson. In all these essays runs an undercurrent that Barbara Smith makes explicit: "All of the aspects of who I am are crucial, indivisible, and pose no inherent conflict." "Times Square Red, Times Square Blue" by Samuel Delany http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814719198/entertainmentsit An award-winning science fiction writer, esteemed professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst, and celebrated essayist and memoirist, Samuel Delany is one of America's keenest observers. He was also a longtime habitue of many of the sex theaters in New York City's Times Square, spending, by his own estimate, "thousands and thousands of hours" at the Capri, Variety Photoplays, the Eros, and the Venus. In the 1990s, all of these theaters were shut down through new restrictive zoning laws, part of a combined effort by the Walt Disney Corporation and the administration of Mayor Rudy Giuliani to gentrify the area, replacing these seedily memorable institutions with antiseptic, innocuous architectural and cultural creations in the name of health safety. In the two essays that comprise this eloquent, provocative book, Delany grieves for the loss of this strip of sexual release. Though he is careful not to romanticize or sentimentalize the peep shows and porn theaters, he does illuminate the way in which these venues crossed class, racial, and sexual-orientation lines, providing a delightfully subversive utopia--and a microcosm of New York life. Read together, the essays of "Times Square Red, Times Square Blue" are both heartfelt homage to a beloved city and lament for a quirky vitality increasingly phased out by encroaching capitalism. "Ethan Green Exposed" by Eric Orner http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312200404/entertainmentsit The fourth collection of strips from Eric Orner's syndicated comic, "The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green," flips back and forth between the latest developments in Ethan's life--including his on-again, off-again romance with Doug and a new job as a personal assistant to a closeted celebrity weatherman--and hilarious one-off gag strips like "Really Pretty Far Off the Circuit Circuit Parties" and the "Dream Date Alphabet" ("Umberto is Unfaithful, and Vincent is Vicious"). Part of the joy of reading Orner's work in these collections is that it highlights the strength of his long-range storylines, which include a cast of nearly a dozen supporting characters, from his best friend, Buck, to the wacky Hat Sisters--who, in one memorable strip, provide their own delicious solution to the Clinton impeachment crisis, including washing out a certain independent prosecutor's mouth with soap. ****** You'll find more great books, articles, and interviews in Amazon.com's Gay & Lesbian section at Books
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