Queering the Underworld by Scott Herring
At the start of the twentieth century, tales of "how the other half lives" experienced a surge in popularity. People looking to go slumming without leaving home turned to these narratives for spectacular revelations of the underworld and sordid details about the deviants who populated it. In this major rethinking of American literature and culture, Scott Herring explores how a key group of authors manipulated this genre to paradoxically evade the confines of sexual identification. "Queering the Underworld" examines a range of writers, from Jane Addams and Willa Cather to Carl Van Vechten and Djuna Barnes, revealing how they fulfilled the conventions of slumming literature but undermined its goals and in the process queered the genre itself. Their work frustrated the reader's desire for sexual knowledge, restored the inscrutability of sexual identity, and cast doubt on the value of a homosexual subculture made visible and therefore subject to official control. Herring is persuasive and polemical in connecting these writers to ongoing debates about lesbian and gay history and politics, and "Queering the Underworld" will be widely read by students and scholars of literature, history, and sexuality.
"Herring presents a sustained and well-written argument, working closely and effectively with a range of textsHis interesting and informative book attempts an important - and welcome - intervention into our present historical moment, when the potentially emancipatory project of queer politics threatens to collapse into a race to the altar." - Susan Edmunds, Syracuse University"
Scott Herring is assistant professor of English at Indiana University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780226327907 |
| ISBN 10 | 0226327906 |
| Title | Queering the Underworld |
| Author | Scott Herring |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | The University of Chicago Press |
| Year published | 2007-12-30 |
| Number of pages | 272 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |