Postcolonial and Queer Theories: Intersections and Essays

Since the 1960s American and Western European gays have set the agenda for sexual liberation and defined its emergence. Western models of homosexuality often provide the only globally recognizable frameworks for discussing gay and lesbian cultures around the world, and thus Western interpretive schemes are imposed on non-Western societies. At the same time, gay and lesbian lifestyles in emerging countries do not always neatly fit Western paradigms, and data from those countries often clash with dominant Western models. So too, the literature of emerging countries often depicts homosexuality in ways which challenge the existing tools of Western literary critics.

The thirteen contributors to this book examine the implied imposition of a heavily capitalistic, white, and generally male model of homosexuality on the emerging world. By combining postcolonial and queer theoretical approaches, this volume suggests alternative frameworks for describing sexuality around the world and for exploring non-Western literary representations of gay and lesbian lifestyles. The volume concludes with a chapter assessing new questions in both postcolonial and queer theorizing that suggest common concerns and many avenues for future research.

Author: John C. Hawley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 02/28/2001
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.54h x 6.32w x 0.84d
ISBN: 9780313315916

About the Author

JOHN C. HAWLEY is Associate Professor of English at Santa Clara University. His previous books include Reform and Counter-Reform (1994), Cross-Addressing: Resistance Literature and Cultural Borders (1996), Writing the Nation (1996), Through a Glass Darkly (1996), The Postcolonial Crescent: Islam's Impact on Contemporary Literature (1998), and Christian Encounters with the Other (1998).