Backward Glances: Cruising Queer Streets in London and New York
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.45 (665 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1861891806 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 224 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-08-09 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
A Customer said Excellent. A truly interesting, intelligent, and readable meditation on gay male culture from the mid 19th century to the present. Jargon-free, wide-ranging in its use of sources, and both sensitive and informed in its use of history. Turner takes on issues of great interest to anyone curious about queer history and theory, and he presents his ideas in a way that is enjoyable and . Academic and Drained of Sex In Backward Glances by Mark W. Turner, queer (a too lengthy discussion of why "queer" and not "gay" erupts in the middle of the book, which is a relief from the even lengthier discussion of a flaneur, by way of Baudelaire) cruising in the streets of New York and London is drained of sex. This is a fairly passionless treatise in general that is short on historical conten
"Backward Glances is worthy of our attention, providing considerable insight into a largely invisible--and certainly a very lively--feature of the urban landscape."
Backward Glances is an exploration of the history of male street cruising. Beginning with the simple premise that we all walk the streets differently, Mark Turner suggests that male cruising operates through encounter and connection rather than alienation, and that it is the defining experience of what it means to be modern.Backward Glances is the first gay urban history of its kind, examining these issues across a range of cultural material, including novels, poems, pornography, journalism, gay guides, paintings, the internet, and fragments of writing about the city such as Whitman's notebooks and David Hockney's graffiti. Too often in discussions of urban space and interpretations of urban culture, streetwalking implies a rigid model for the way we inhabit the streets. It provides a new way of understanding what it means for a man to walk the streets of the modern Western city.Backward Glances is aimed at all those interested in the culture of the city, queer cultural history and the appropriation of public space.