There are many definitions and interpretations of queer theory, but in a general sense, it involves the study of gender and sexuality identities that exist outside the defined "norms" in these areas, norms considered as cisgender heterosexuality and homosexuality (Oxford Reference).
See below to learn more about theorists who are considered foundational in the study of queer theory and access links to their works.
Michel Foucault
Gayle Rubin
Judith Butler
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
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A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory by
This new take on Queer Theory explores the ways in which sexuality, subjectivity and sociality have been discursively produced in various historical and cultural contexts. The book begins by putting gay and lesbian sexuality and politics in historical context and demonstrates how, and why, Queer Theory emerged in the West in the late twentieth century. It goes on to provide a detailed overview of the complex ways in which Queer Theory has been practised. Topics covered include:* race* sadomasochism* 'straight' sex * fetishism* community* popular culture * transgender* performativityEach chapter focuses on an issue or topic, provides a critical analysis of the specific ways in which it has been responded to by critics (including Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Adrienne Rich and Laura Mulvey), and introduces key terms. Each chapter also discusses contemporary cinematic texts.Key Features* Extends current accounts of Queer Theory by analysing its relation to our everyday lives.* Provides historical overviews of key concepts such as heterosexuality, sadomasochism and fetishism.* Up to date coverage of issues and debates.* Examples are taken from contemporary popular cultural texts such as films, documentaries and art projects.
Epistemology of the Closet, Updated with a New Preface by
Since the late 1980s, queer studies and theory have become vital to the intellectual and political life of the United States. This has been due, in no small degree, to the influence of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's critically acclaimed Epistemology of the Closet. Working from classic texts of European and American writers--including Melville, James, Nietzsche, Proust, and Wilde--Sedgwick analyzes a turn-of-the-century historical moment in which sexual orientation became as important a demarcation of personhood as gender had been for centuries. In her preface to this updated edition Sedgwick places the book both personally and historically, looking specifically at the horror of the first wave of the AIDS epidemic and its influence on the text.
Gender Trouble by
One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler's Gender Troubleis as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent.
Genealogy of Queer Theory by
Who are queers and what do https://wpi.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01WPI_INST/dbokq8/alma9937223436804746they want? Could it be that we are all queers? Beginning with such questions, William B. Turner's lucid and engaging book traces the roots of queer theory to the growing awareness that few of us precisely fit standard categories for sexual and gender identity. Turner shows how Michal Foucault's work contributed to feminists' investigations into the ways that power relates to identity. In the last decades of the twentieth century, feminists were the first to challenge the assumption that a claim to universal identity -- the white male citizen -- should serve as the foundation of political thought and action. Difference matters. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality interact, producing a wide array of identities that resist rigid definition and are mutable. By understanding the notion of transhistorical categories -- woman, man, homosexual, and so forth -- feminist and gay male scholars launched queer theoretical work as a new way to think about the politics of gender and sexuality. A Geneology of Queer Theory probes the fierce debates among scholars and activists, weighing the charges that queer readings of texts and identity politics do not constitute and might inhibit radical social change. Written by a historian, it considers the implications of queer theory for historical inquiry and the distinction between philosophy and history. As such, the book will interest readers of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender studies, intellectual history, political theory, and the history of gender/sexuality.
The History of Sexuality by
Why we are so fascinated with sex and sexuality--from the preeminent philosopher of the 20th century. Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.
The New Woman by
The New Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and the Trans Feminine Allegory traces the use of the trans feminine as an allegorical figure, from the practice's origins in nineteenth-century sexology through writings in the fields of psychoanalysis, Modernist fiction, and contemporary Queer Theory. The book is the first to identify the process by which medical sources simplified the diversity of trans feminine experience into a single diagnostic narrative. It then demonstrates that this medical figure became an archetype for the "sexual anarchy" of the Modernist period in works by Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Djuna Barnes, T. S. Eliot, and Jean Genet. Thus illuminating the trans feminine's Modernist provenance, the book examines foundational works of Queer Theory that resuscitated the trans feminine allegory at the end of the twentieth century. Insightful and seminal, The New Woman debunks the pervasive reflex beginning in the 1990s to connect trans experience to a late twentieth-century collapse of sexual differences by revealing the Modernist roots of that very formulation.
Rereading Heterosexuality by
Presents new perspectives on representations of female heterosexuality in selected contemporary British and American novels.Drawing on feminist and queer theories of sex, gender and sexuality, this study focuses on female identities at odds with heterosexual norms. In particular, it explores narratives in which the conventional equation between heterosexuality, reproductive sexuality and female identity is questioned. Key Features: * A timely exploration of the dynamic relationship between feminist and queer theory* Offers close analysis of influential novels by leading contemporary authors, including Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex (2002), Zoë Heller's Notes on a Scandal (2003), Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005), Alan Warner's Morvern Callar (1995), A.M Homes's The End of Alice (1996), and Sarah Waters's Affinity (1999)* Topics range from spinsterhood and intergenerational sexuality to transgender and human cloning
