Sexual Identities: A Cognitive Literary Study

Cognitive cultural theorists have rarely taken up sex, sexuality, or gender identity. When they have done so, they have often stressed the evolutionary sources of gender differences. In Sexual Identities, Patrick Colm Hogan extends his pioneering work on identity to examine the complexities of sex, the diversity of sexuality, and the limited scope of gender. Drawing from a diverse body of literary works, Hogan illustrates a rarely drawn distinction between practical identity (the patterns in what one does, thinks, and feels) and categorical identity (how one labels oneself or is categorized by society). Building on this distinction, he offers a nuanced reformulation of the idea of social construction, distinguishing ideology, situational determination, shallow socialization, and deep socialization. He argues for a meticulous skepticism about gender differences and a view of sexuality as evolved but also contingent and highly variable. The variability of sexuality and the near absence of gender fixity--and the imperfect alignment of practical and categorical identities in both cases--give rise to the social practices that Judith Butler refers to as "regulatory regimes." Hogan goes on to explore the cognitive and affective operation of such regimes. Ultimately, Sexual Identities turns to sex and the question of how to understand transgendering in a way that respects the dignity of transgender people, without reverting to gender essentialism.

About the Author :
Patrick Colm Hogan is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in the English Department at the University of Connecticut, where he is also affiliated with the program in Cognitive Science and the Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He is the author of 20 books and over 150 scholarly articles on topics in literature, cognition, emotion, and politics. His recent publications include Beauty and Sublimity: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Literature and the Arts (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Imagining Kashmir: Emplotment and Colonialism (University of Nebraska Press, 2016).

Review :
"With Hogan's trademark brilliance of mind and breezy prose style he delivers the foundations we've all been looking for to really understand the miraculous and multifarious ways that we exist as situated sexual beings in the world. Turning to advances in cognitive and affective studies, Hogan adds to, deepens, and expands the major intellectual traditions that inform sexuality and gender studies. Liberating!"--Frederick Luis Aldama, University Distinguished Scholar, Arts & Humanities Distinguished Professor at The Ohio State University "Solidly and critically based on cognitive science for methodology and using literary works with historical and cultural diversity as its valuable data, Patrick Hogan's book presents a brilliant, insightful and nuanced investigation of sexuality and gender. Considering the role of affect and emotion in shaping sexual identities, among other innovations and modifications, it is a provocative and significant contribution to the burgeoning field of cognitive cultural study."--Dan Shen, Changjiang Professor of English, Peking University "It takes a scholar of Hogan's iconoclastic brilliance, with his unique expertise in multiple disciplines and encyclopedic knowledge of world literature, to develop a project this breathtaking in scope and originality. Sexual Identities offers a critical integration of interdisciplinary insights on sex, sexuality, and gender identity, with a particular emphasis on transgender identity. Drawing on cognitive science, post-structuralism, feminism, discourse analysis, and queer theory, Hogan demonstrates that we cannot fully understand what drives sexual and gender dimorphism unless we inquire into the specific cognitive biases that structure our notions of identity. Coming from the humanities and remaining committed to the rich interpretive tradition of literary studies, Hogan is poised to transform both the sciences and the humanities."-Lisa Zunshine, Bush-Holbrook Professor of English, University of Kentucky