Unhistorical Shakespeare: Queer Theory in Shakespearean Literature and Film

Unhistorical Shakespeare argues that the way in which we study history has a significant bearing on what desire we study, and how we study it.

Menon argues that our embrace of difference as the template for relating past and present produces a hetero temporality in which chronology determines identity.

In turn, such an understanding of history fixes sexual identity as the domain of the present and relegates nebulous desire to a thing of the past.

In contrast to this temporal-sexual reification, Unhistorical Shakespeare outlines the idea of homohistory, which questions the fundamental historicist assumptions of teleology, facticity, citation, origins, and authenticity to lay bare their investments in compulsory hetero temporality.

Author: M. Menon
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 11/01/2008
Pages: 195
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.50w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780230606708

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 10/10/2008 pg. 21

About the Author
MADHAVI MENON is Assistant Professor of Literature, American University, Washington, USA.