Title: Rereading Heterosexuality: Feminism, Queer Theory and Contemporary Fiction
Abstract:Rachel Carroll’s new book focuses on a range of fictional representations “of female identities at odds with heterosexual norms” (1). Criticism of contemporary literature generally pays scant attentio...Rachel Carroll’s new book focuses on a range of fictional representations “of female identities at odds with heterosexual norms” (1). Criticism of contemporary literature generally pays scant attention to gender and sexuality, while recent queer theory has tended to privilege performance and visual art over literature, so Rereading Heterosexuality will likely become a vital reference point for both contemporary literary studies and gender and sexuality studies. Carroll seeks to bring out heterosexuality’s “complexities and contradictions,” to consider the “implications” of its “normative power” “for diverse heterosexual identities,” and to account for its “incoherence” (5, 6). The assertion, in the introduction, that “[c]ontingent and contradictory, heterosexuality does not possess a power that is unequivocal, nor does the functioning of heterosexuality announce itself through conventional modes of oppressive power” (7), underpins the book. The “diverse heterosexual identities” are provided by the range of texts studied, which includes hitherto critically neglected novels such...Read More
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-06-04
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Title: $Rereading Heterosexuality: Feminism, Queer Theory and Contemporary Fiction
Abstract: Rachel Carroll’s new book focuses on a range of fictional representations “of female identities at odds with heterosexual norms” (1). Criticism of contemporary literature generally pays scant attention to gender and sexuality, while recent queer theory has tended to privilege performance and visual art over literature, so Rereading Heterosexuality will likely become a vital reference point for both contemporary literary studies and gender and sexuality studies. Carroll seeks to bring out heterosexuality’s “complexities and contradictions,” to consider the “implications” of its “normative power” “for diverse heterosexual identities,” and to account for its “incoherence” (5, 6). The assertion, in the introduction, that “[c]ontingent and contradictory, heterosexuality does not possess a power that is unequivocal, nor does the functioning of heterosexuality announce itself through conventional modes of oppressive power” (7), underpins the book. The “diverse heterosexual identities” are provided by the range of texts studied, which includes hitherto critically neglected novels such...