Ebook256 pages6 hours
Queering the Underworld: Slumming, Literature, and the Undoing of Lesbian and Gay History
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
At the start of the twentieth century, tales of “how the other half lives” experienced a surge in popularity. People looking to go slumming without leaving home turned to these narratives for spectacular revelations of the underworld and sordid details about the deviants who populated it.
In this major rethinking of American literature and culture, Scott Herring explores how a key group of authors manipulated this genre to paradoxically evade the confines of sexual identification. Queering the Underworld examines a range of writers, from Jane Addams and Willa Cather to Carl Van Vechten and Djuna Barnes, revealing how they fulfilled the conventions of slumming literature but undermined its goals, and in the process, queered the genre itself. Their work frustrated the reader’s desire for sexual knowledge, restored the inscrutability of sexual identity, and cast doubt on the value of a homosexual subculture made visible and therefore subject to official control.
Herring is persuasive and polemical in connecting these writers to ongoing debates about lesbian and gay history and politics, and Queering the Underworld will be widely read by students and scholars of literature, history, and sexuality.
In this major rethinking of American literature and culture, Scott Herring explores how a key group of authors manipulated this genre to paradoxically evade the confines of sexual identification. Queering the Underworld examines a range of writers, from Jane Addams and Willa Cather to Carl Van Vechten and Djuna Barnes, revealing how they fulfilled the conventions of slumming literature but undermined its goals, and in the process, queered the genre itself. Their work frustrated the reader’s desire for sexual knowledge, restored the inscrutability of sexual identity, and cast doubt on the value of a homosexual subculture made visible and therefore subject to official control.
Herring is persuasive and polemical in connecting these writers to ongoing debates about lesbian and gay history and politics, and Queering the Underworld will be widely read by students and scholars of literature, history, and sexuality.
Read more from Scott Herring
The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lost Autobiography of Samuel Steward: Recollections of an Extraordinary Twentieth-Century Gay Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Domain of the Dead Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Queering the Underworld
Related ebooks
Queer Philologies: Sex, Language, and Affect in Shakespeare's Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Heterosexuality Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5British queer history: New approaches and perspectives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarvard's Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homophobia: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wide-Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Queer Folks: Gender and Sexuality in Rural America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex Panic Rhetorics, Queer Interventions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQueer Intentions: A (Personal) Journey Through LGBTQ+ Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queer Encyclopedia of Film and Television Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Visions of Queer Martyrdom from John Henry Newman to Derek Jarman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Queer Fantasies of the American Family Sitcom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Queer Uncanny: New Perspectives on the Gothic Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done For America - A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reclaiming Queer: Activist and Academic Rhetorics of Resistance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMen without Maps: Some Gay Males of the Generation before Stonewall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of Minor Perverts: Sexology, Etiology, and the Emergences of Sexuality Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Queer Natures, Queer Mythologies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5After Queer Theory: The Limits of Sexual Politics Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Boystown: Sex and Community in Chicago Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSexual Politics, Sexual Communities: Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faeries, Bears, and Leathermen: Men in Community Queering the Masculine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Social Science For You
All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Men Explain Things to Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Close Encounters with Addiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women Don't Owe You Pretty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Queering the Underworld
Rating: 3.6666666666666665 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
3 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Queering the Underworld - Scott Herring
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1