Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault

by Jonathan Dollimore

Book Overview

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,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198112696
• ISBN13: 9780198112693
• Release Date: September 1991
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Sexuality uncovered

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.