MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 03477mam a2200433 a 4500
001 1604201
005 20220608195204.0
008 940803s1995 mau b 001 0 eng
010 $a 94030987
020 $a0674406192 (alk. paper)
035 $a(OCoLC)ocm31011813
035 $9AKK9563CU
035 $a(NNC)1604201
035 $a1604201
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dOrLoB
050 00 $aHQ76$b.B52 1995
082 00 $a305.9/06642$220
100 1 $aBersani, Leo.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50007576
245 10 $aHomos /$cLeo Bersani.
260 $aCambridge, Mass. :$bHarvard University Press,$c1995.
300 $a208 pages ;$c23 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [185]-201) and index.
520 $aHardly a day goes by without the media focusing an often sympathetic beam on gay life - and, with AIDS, on gay death. Gay plays on Broadway, big book awards to authors writing on gay subjects, Hollywood movies with gay themes, gay and lesbian studies at dozens of universities, openly gay columnists and even editors at national mainstream publications, political leaders speaking in favor of gay rights: it seems that straight American has finally begun to listen to homosexual America.
520 8 $aStill, Bersani notes, not only has homophobia grown more virulent, but many gay men and lesbians themselves are reluctant to be identified as homosexuals. In Homos, he studies the historical, political, and philosophical grounds for the current distrust, within the gay community, of self-identifying moves, for the paradoxical desire to be invisibly visible.
520 8 $aWhile acknowledging the dangers of any kind of group identification (if you can be singled out, you can be disciplined), Bersani argues for a bolder presentation what it means to be gay. In their justifiable suspicion of labels, gay men and lesbians have nearly disappeared into their own sophisticated awareness of how they have been socially constructed. By downplaying their sexuality, gays risk self-immolation - they will melt into the stifling culture they had wanted to contest.
520 8 $a.
520 8 $aIn his chapters on contemporary queer theory, on Foucault and psychoanalysis, on the politics of sadomasochism, and on the image of "the gay outlaw" in works by Gide, Proust, and Genet, Bersani raises the exciting possibility that same-sex desire by its very nature can disrupt oppressive social orders. His spectacular theory of "homo-ness" will be of interest to straights as well as gays, for it designates a mode of connecting to the world embodied in, but not reducible to, a sexual preference.
520 8 $aThe gay identity bersani advocates is more of a force - as such, rather cool to the modest goal of social tolerance for diverse lifestyles - which can lead to a massive redefining of sociality itself, and of what we might expect from human communities.
650 0 $aHomosexuality$xPhilosophy.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008121839
650 0 $aGay men$xPsychology.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008117809
650 0 $aHomosexuality in literature.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85061792
852 00 $bleh$hHQ76$i.B52 1995
852 00 $boff,glx$hHQ76$i.B52 1995
852 00 $bglx$hHQ76$i.B52 1995
852 00 $bbar$hHQ76$i.B52 1995
852 00 $bcomp$hHQ76$i.B52 1995
852 00 $bsaid$hHQ76$i.B52 1995