Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.48 (891 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0198112696 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 400 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-04-04 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
. Jonathan Dollimore is at University of Sussex
In so doing, Dollimore discovers that Freud's theory of perversion is more challenging than either his critics or his advocates usually allow, especially when approached via the earlier period's archetypal perverts, the religious heretic and the wayward woman, Satan and Eve. A path-breaking book in a rapidly expanding field of literary and cultural study, Sexual Dissidence shows how the literature, histories, and subcultures of sexual and gender dissidence prove remarkably illuminating for current debates in literary theory, psychoanalysis, and cultural materialism. Why is homosexuality socially marginal yet symbolically central? Why is it so strangely integral to the very societies which obsessively denounce it, and why is it history--rather than human nature--that has produced this paradoxical position? These are just some of the questions explored in Sexual Dissidence. Written by a leading critic in gender studies, this wide-ranging study returns to the early modern period in order to focus, question, and develop issues of postmodernity, and in the process brilliantly link writers as diverse as Shakespeare, André Gide, Oscar Wilde, and Jean Genet, and cultural critics as different as St. It includes chapters on transgression and its containment, contemporary theories of sexual di
Mr. D. P. Jay said jargon. jThis is by no means an easy read (like any book that uses ‘problematic’ as a noun) but it looks at the way literature helps people to understand and define themselves. It traces the term “perverse” back to its etymological origins in Latin and its epistemological origins in Augustine. A second theoretical section places Freud and Foucault in dialogue on the subject of perversion, followed by a section on homophobia.The book is topped and tailed by considerations of Oscar Wilde and Andrew Gide, which was mainly why I read it.There are some who believe that we hav. "Sexuality uncovered" according to A Customer. With this book Dollimore analyzes sexuality in terms of the differing conceptions of Andre Gide and Oscar Wilde. Where Wilde saw surface and performance, Gide saw a representation of essential self. Taking Wilde's side in the argument, Dollimore uses this analysis to deconstruct sexuality as it appears in early texts.
More to the point, so should anyone who presumes to teach."--Times Higher Education Supplement"A substantial and ambitious book.It is a book that needed to be written, requiring the courage to tackle several conventionally distinct fields of knowledge and interpretation."--Times Literary Supplement. "Appears well placed to make an influential intervention in cultural theory on both sides of the Atlantic.A carefully argued, thought-provoking book that makes fascinating connections among different kinds of discourse while carrying an affective punch far beyond the academic routine."--ModernLanguage Quarterly"Dollimore's amazing command of Western literary culture is evident in the historical and disciplinary sweep of his book."--Signs"This is a thoughtful and challenging book, not only for its reappraisals of hoary academic controversies like the constructionist-essentialist standoff, but be