Critical Essays: Gay and Lesbian Writers of ColorThis pioneering work is the first book to systematically explore the literature of gay and lesbian writers of color in the United States. Critical Essays challenges the marginalization and tokenization of gay men and lesbians of color in the dominant academic discourses by focusing exclusively on the imaginative work of representative Native-American, Asian-American, Latino(a), and African-American gay and lesbian writers. As the first book offering a scholarly assessment of ethnic gay and lesbian writing in the U.S., Critical Essays simultaneously defies ethnic and mainstream homophobia as well as straight and gay/lesbian racism. This deliberate counter to the dominant white discourse of gay and lesbian literature offers a lively contribution to the debate on the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender/sexuality and class in American literature. A wide range of critical approaches, including historical readings, cultural analysis, and deconstructive criticism, is employed to the works of such major literary figures as Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, John Rechy, Paula Gunn Allen, and Gloria Anzaldúa. These thought-provoking chapters disrupt the complacent notion of a unified gay/lesbian community by questioning the presumed similarities of persons who share sexual identity. Some of the specific topics explored in Critical Essays include:
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Contents
Pathology Secrecy and the Discourses of Racial and Sexual Identity | 1 |
A Speculative Dialogue on Asian Pacific Islander Lesbian and Gay Writing | 21 |
Resistance Postcolonialism and Identity | 53 |
ReVisionary Techniques in the Works of Paula Gunn Allen Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde | 73 |
Gender Culture and the SubjectinProcess on the American Stage | 97 |
Pleasure and Power in the Novels of John Rechy Arturo Islas and Michael Nava | 111 |
Gay ReReadings of the Harlem Renaissance Poets | 127 |
Countee Cullens Uranian Soul Windows | 143 |
CleaverBaldwinLorde and AfricanAmerican Sexism and Sexuality | 167 |
Zami Audre Lordes LesbianCentered Text | 181 |
Intervening in the Cultural Politics of Race Sexuality and AIDS | 195 |
Randall Kenan and Black Queer Theory | 221 |
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