The Queening of America

By David Van Leer and Wynsberghe Van

Book Overview

Since at least the end of the nineteenth century, gay culture - its humour, its icons, its desires - has been alive and sometimes even visible in the midst of straight American society. David Van Leer puts forward here a series of readings that aim to identify what he calls the "queening" of America, a process by which "rhetorics and situations specific to homosexual culture are presented to a general readership as if culturally neutral." The Queening of America examines how the invisibility of gay male writing, especially in the popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s, facilitated the crossing of gay motifs in straight culture. Van Leer then critiques some current models of making homosexuality visible (the packaging of Joe Orton, the theories of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, the rise of gay studies), before concluding more optimistically with the possible alliances between gay culture and other minority discourses.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 041590336X
• ISBN13: 9780415903363
• Release Date: December 1995
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The book queer theory should have made its ur-text...

Van Leer's book is everything we want from gay and lesbian (and queer) theory. Written in extremely lucid, beautifully crisp prose, Van Leer looks closely at how "the closet" could and did function in important ways in mid-20th c. America. He returns theory to the masses here--offering an analysis that is truly accessible to all readers, academic and non-academic alike. Moreover, he pays close attention to minority subcultures and their intersections; he is not solely interested in gay, white male specificity. In this respect alone, the book is completely novel and important--evidencing a respect for all minority populations existing within hegemony. A theoretical tour-de-force and a treat to read, "The Queening of America" is the book we all should have turned to in queer theory's nascent period. It's a shame it isn't read and cited more often.