Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading

SINFIELD, ALAN

Literature & Fiction

Clarendon Press

If we come to consciousness within a language that is complicit with the social order, how can we conceive, let alone organize, resistance? This key question in the politics of reading and sub cultural practice informs Alan Sin field's book on writing in early-modern England. New historicism has often shown people trapped in a web of language and culture; through agile and well informed discussions of writing by Shakespeare, Sidney, Donne, and Marlowe, Sinfield reassesses the scope of dissidence and control. The early-modern state, Christianity, and the cultural apparatus, despite an ideology of unity and explicit violence, could not but allow space to challenging voices. Disruptions in concepts of hierarchy, nationality, gender and sexuality force their way into literary texts. Sinfield is often provocative. He 'rewrites' Julius Caesar to produce a different politics, compares Sidney's idea of poetry to Leonid Brezhnev's, and reinstates the concept of character in the face of post-structuralist theory. He keeps the current politics of literary study always in view, especially in a substantial chapter on Shakespeare in the United States. Sin field subjects interactions between class, ethnicity, sexuality and the professional structures of the humanities to a detailed and hard-hitting critique, and argues for new commitments to collectivities and subcultures. This is a controversial, lucid, informed, and timely book by a leading exponent of cultural materialism.

British & Irish

For 15 years in Victorian England, Oscar Wilde was able to carry on like the famous camp queen of our imaginings - effete, leisured, aesthetic, amoral, decadent, dandified. This work explores how Wilde was seen before the trials that ended his career and made him the most famous queer man since Socrates. In particular, it examines the concept of effeminacy and asks how Wilde's effeminacy was perceived. In examining these points, Sinfield ranges over issues of identity, subculture, race, style, masculinity, homophobia, genetics and gender-bending. He broaches the thesis that the Wilde trials bring into focus a particular image of the queer man which has extended into the 20th century, and that our stereotypical notion of male homosexuality derives from Wilde and our ideas about him. Sinfield assesses the strategic options for lesbian and gay subcultures today. This provocative book aspires to set the agenda for a gay cultural politics - a hundred years after the Wilde trials, on the threshold of the 21st century.

The Wilde Century

History

Columbia Univ. Pr.

On Sexuality and Power (Between Men-Between Women: Lesbian and Gay Studies)

It is widely supposed that the most suitable partner will be someone very much like oneself; gay fiction and cinema are often organized around this assumption. Nonetheless, power differentials are remarkably persistent―as well as sexy. What are the personal and political implications of this insight? Sinfield argues that hierarchies in interpersonal relations are continuous with the main power differentials of our social and political life (gender, class, age, and race); therefore it is not surprising that they govern our psychic lives. Recent writing enables an exploration of their positive potential, especially in fantasy, as well as their danger. On Sexuality and Power focuses on the writing of the last thirty years, revisiting also Whitman, Wilde, Mann, Forster, and Genet, and reassessing the very idea of a gay canon.

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

This intriguing book tracks stage representations of lesbians and gay men from Oscar Wilde to the present day. Alan Sinfield examines scores of British and American plays produced and viewed in alternative as well as West End and Broadway theaters. Theater, he argues, was and is an important place for the circulation of images of homosexuality and for the exploration of concepts of gender and sexuality.

Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theater in the Twentieth Century

Yale University Press

<div>This intriguing and authoritative book tracks stage representations of lesbians and gay men from Oscar Wilde to the present day.&nbsp;Alan Sinfield argues that, despite and because of censorship and discretion, twentieth-century theater has been viewed as a gay space.&nbsp;When we attune ourselves to the idioms of the different decades, theater emerges as an important place for the circulation of images of homosexuality and for the exploration of concepts of gender and sexuality. Sinfield examines scores of British and American plays and playwrights, including works by Wilde, Maugham, Coward, Hellman, O'Neill, Rattigan, Williams, Le Roi Jones, and Orton. He locates plays in the contexts in which they were produced and viewed, whether it be West End and Broadway or more bohemian little club theaters, Off-Broadway, and fringe. He discusses many women writers?from Djuna Barnes and Agatha Christie to Lorraine Hansberry and Caryl Churchill?and analyzes the implications of homosexuality in their work. He explains why in the 1950s British and American plays began to differ in their representations of gays, how the 1960s produced an exuberant cultivation of "kinky" humor and gay political activism in theaters, and what impact AIDS has had on theatrical productions. Sinfield concludes with provocative questions about the direction of new theater writing, asserting that representations in theater continue to challenge notions of our sexual potential. </div>

Dramas & Plays

For 15 years in Victorian England, Oscar Wilde was able to carry on like the famous camp queen of our imaginings - effete, leisured, aesthetic, amoral, decadent, dandified. This work explores how Wilde was seen before the trials that ended his career and made him the most famous queer man since Socrates. In particular, it examines the concept of effeminacy and asks how Wilde's effeminacy was perceived. In examining these points, Sinfield ranges over issues of identity, subculture, race, style, masculinity, homophobia, genetics and gender-bending. He broaches the thesis that the Wilde trials bring into focus a particular image of the queer man which has extended into the 20th century, and that our stereotypical notion of male homosexuality derives from Wilde and our ideas about him. Sinfield assesses the strategic options for lesbian and gay subcultures today. This provocative book aspires to set the agenda for a gay cultural politics - a hundred years after the Wilde trials, on the threshold of the 21st century.

Wilde Century

Continuum International Publis

A new collection of recent essays by the most important scholars, critics and theorists of today, with a lively and accessible introduction by Alan Sinfield. In diverse ways, Macbeth is approached as a play where provocative ideas about gender language and political structures are exposed and tested. This New Casebook is full of exciting ideas about Macbeth and is a convenient way to assess recent critical developments through the work of the best current commentators on Shakespeare.

Macbeth (New Casebooks, 134)

Red Globe Press

Cultural Politics – Queer Reading

Was Shakespeare gay? Is The Merchant of Venice anti-semitic? How does mainstream reading differ from that of subcultural groups? How does the formal study of literature handle such questions? In this lively and readable book, Alan Sinfield engages, freely, provocatively, and wittily, with topics such as the gendering of literary culture, the sexual politics of psychoanalysis during the Cold War, and the history of cultural materialism, and discusses figures such as Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Raymond Williams, Louis Althusser, Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Holly Hughes, Audre Lorde, Thom Gunn and Jeanette Winterson. Sinfield boldly and persuasively challenges the assumptions that have shaped the study of English literature, investigates the principles and practice that may inform dissident reading, and ultimately argues that lesbian and gay intellectuals should cultivate an allegiance beyond the academy. Cultural Politics-Queer Reading is a lively and accessible account of cultural materialism written by a leading and controversial student of contemporary cultural politics. It intervenes in current debates in critical theory and in gender, ethnic, and cultural studies, and sets the agenda for a truly political lesbian and gay studies.

Routledge

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Books by SINFIELD, ALAN

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SINFIELD, ALAN. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading

Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading

The Wilde Century

On Sexuality and Power (Between Men-Between Women: Lesbian and Gay Studies)

On Sexuality and Power (Between Men-Between Women: Lesbian and Gay Studies)

Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theater in the Twentieth Century

Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theater in the Twentieth Century

Wilde Century

Macbeth (New Casebooks, 134)

Cultural Politics – Queer Reading