Postcolonial and Queer Theories - (Contributions to the Study of World Literature) by John C Hawley (Hardcover)

About the Book

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.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

.,."the book performs its work with exhilarating success. Since Hawley's afterword gives perspective to the collection--providing material that is more often in an introduction--this reviewer recommends starting there. Highly recommended for large university and public libraries serving upper-division undergraduates and above."-Choice

?...the book performs its work with exhilarating success. Since Hawley's afterword gives perspective to the collection--providing material that is more often in an introduction--this reviewer recommends starting there. Highly recommended for large university and public libraries serving upper-division undergraduates and above.?-Choice

?This collection uses postcolonial theory as a model for avoiding the imperialist tendency to imagine "gay" and "lesbian" cultures around the world in the image of white, upper-middle-class Americans and Western Europeans. It seeks to explore the often more fluid forms of same-sex attraction in other cultures, as expressed by their literature and film, without fetishizing or reductively translating them.?-American Literature

..."the book performs its work with exhilarating success. Since Hawley's afterword gives perspective to the collection--providing material that is more often in an introduction--this reviewer recommends starting there. Highly recommended for large university and public libraries serving upper-division undergraduates and above."-Choice

"This collection uses postcolonial theory as a model for avoiding the imperialist tendency to imagine "gay" and "lesbian" cultures around the world in the image of white, upper-middle-class Americans and Western Europeans. It seeks to explore the often more fluid forms of same-sex attraction in other cultures, as expressed by their literature and film, without fetishizing or reductively translating them."-American Literature

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).