Queering the underworld [[electronic resource] ] : slumming, literature, and the undoing of lesbian and gay history / / Scott Herring

• Autore: Herring Scott <1976->
• Pubblicazione: Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, 2007
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (296 p.)
• Disciplina: 810.9/920664
• Soggetto topico: American literature - 20th century - History and criticism; Gay culture in literature; Slums in literature; City and town life in literature; Homosexuality in literature; Lesbianism in literature; Homosexuality - United States - History; Lesbianism - United States - History
• Soggetto non controllato: djuna barnes, carl van vechten, willa cather, jane addams, literature, slumming, poverty, class, american studies, underworld, deviance, crime, sexuality, identity, homosexuality, subculture, lesbian, gay, history, canon, lgbt, lgbtq, lgbtqia, slums, hullhouse, philanthropy, charity, tramps, capitalism, compton, blackness, race, down low, bisexuality, masculinity, gender, queer, harlem, signs, nonfiction
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [237]-263) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Queer Slumming -- Chapter One. Terra Incognita: Jane Addams, Philanthropic Slumming, and the Elusive Identity of Hull-House -- Chapter Two. Willa Cather's Experiment in Luxury -- Chapter Three. "Slightly Known Territory": Renaissance Admixture and the So-Called Van Vechten School -- Chapter Four. Antisapphic Modernism -- Epilogue: Secrets of the African-American Bisexual Man; or, Double Lives on the Down Low -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: 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.
• Titolo autorizzato: Queering the underworld
• ISBN: 9786612239632; 1-282-23963-5; 0-226-32792-2
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910816734403321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II