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.
- ISBN10 0231134096
- ISBN13 9780231134095
- Publish Date 22 December 2004
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Columbia University Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 224
- Language English