Cultural Politics - Queer Reading

Following on from a first publication that generated massive wide-spread debates, "Cultural Politics - Queer Reading "is a bold and enduring study on the future of critical theory and the role of gender, ethnic and cultures within academic literary studies. An illuminating new introduction, written for this edition, revisits the book's agenda for a new form of cultural critique and a truly political lesbian and gay studies and Sinfield renews his call for an 'Englit' that incorporates ongoing study of the cultures of ethnicity, gender and sexuality. Challenging the assumptions that have shaped the study of English literature, Sinfield engages provocatively with topics such as: - the gendering of literary culture - the sexual politics of psychoanalysis during the Cold War - the history of cultural materialism and discusses principal figures such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, Holly Hughes, Audre Lorde and Jeanette Winterson. This is a broadly influential investigation of the principles and practice that may form dissident reading, and a compelling argument for intellectual allegiances beyond the academy. " "

Table of Contents:
Situating Cultural Politics – Queer Reading (2004) Foreword 1. Shakespeare and Dissident Reading 2. Art as Cultural Production 3. Un-American Activities 4.Beyond Englit Notes. Texts Cited. Index

About the Author :
Alan Sinfield has taught mainly at the University of Sussex. There he co-founded the lesbian and gay studies program Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change in 1990. He is one of the most controversial academics in English, Literary and Cultural Studies and has lectured widely in Europe and North America. Until recently he was Editor of our hugely influential journal Textual Practice.

Review :
""A book as colloquially direct and politically pungent as it is learned. It is brief but various and full of matter, and it contributes very usefully to our current discussions of literary and cultural theory and of the place of lesbian / gay studies in university study and political practice." ." -Henry Abelove, Wesleyan University "Alan Sinfield's Cultural Politics - Queer Reading is a witty, stylish and readable examination of the nature and implication of gayness in literary study. Sinfield is an astute and skilled polemicist: he recognises potential flaws in his arguments and frequently sidesteps them with the litheness of a featherweight champion." ." -Andrew Riemer, The Independent Monthly "Sinfield's elegant distillation of cultural materialist practice... draws on a wide range of sources to demonstrate the inseparability of texts from the conditions of their production and reception in history. Strongly recommended to general and academic audiences." ." -Frann Michel, Willamette University "Sinfield has a priority: "Ask not what you can do for Englit, but whether it can do anything for lesbian and gay people." In an easy, affable style, he does particularly nice justice to the Un-American queer scene of the Fifties and early Sixties. There is a lot of dish here about the ideological development of cultural studies." ." -Lambda Book Report "Alan Sinfield's Cultural Politics - Queer Reading is an entertaining and witty, though scholarly, exploration into the relationship between literature and culture." ." -Lee Hanson, In Our Town