1st Edition

Queer Renaissance Historiography Backward Gaze

By Vin Nardizzi, Stephen Guy-Bray Copyright 2009
    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    Dealing with questions of the meaning of eroticism in Renaissance England and its separation from other affective relations, Queer Renaissance Historiography examines the distinctive arrangement of sexuality during this period, and the role that queer theory has played in our understanding of this arrangement. As such this book not only reflects on the practice of writing a queer history of Renaissance England, but also suggests new directions for this practice. Queer Renaissance Historiography collects original contributions from leading experts, participating in a range of critical conversations whilst prompting scholars and students alike to reconsider what we think we know about sex and sexuality in Renaissance England. Presenting ethical, political and critical analyses of Early Modern texts, this book sets the tone for future scholarship on Renaissance sexualities, making a timely intervention in theoretical and methodological debates.

    Chapter 1 Queer Renaissance Historiography, StephenGuy-Bray, VinNardizzi, WillStockton; Chapter 2 A Hundred Years of Queering the Renaissance, WillFisher; Chapter 3 Beyond Sodomy, GoranStanivukovi?; Chapter 4 “Let it Suffise”, James M.Bromley; Chapter 5 Diana’s Band, JenniferDrouin; Chapter 6 Women’s Secretaries, JulieCrawford; Chapter 7 The Touch of Office, LaurieShannon; Chapter 8 Grafted to Falstaff and Compounded with Catherine, VinNardizzi; Chapter 9 Andrew Marvell and Sexual Difference, StephenGuy-Bray; Chapter 10 Sexuality and Society in the Poetry of Katherine Philips, GrahamHammill; Chapter 11 Adam and Eve and the Failure of Heterosexuality, WillStockton; Period Cramps, MadhaviMenon;

    Biography

    Stephen Guy-Bray is Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, Canada, Vin Nardizzi, Assistant Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, Canada and Will Stockton, Assistant Professor of English at Ball State University, US

    'We know from the stories of Orpheus and of Lot that the backward gaze brings in its wake all kinds of queer, unsettling effects. The same can be said for Queer Renaissance Historiography. The sparks fly in these productively contentious essays which illuminatingly rethink queer scholarship’s relation to historicism. There is no end of surprises, provocations, and pleasures here.' Richard Rambuss, Emory University, USA '...the essays help reveal the effects queer-identified readings have upon Renaissance texts and vice versa, effects achieved outside overly-narrow concepts of historical difference.' Renaissance Quarterly 'The questions raised by the book are fascinating and important for both sexual history and unhistory.' English Studies in Canada '... provide[s] a window into the early modern structure of sexual relations and thinking about sexuality/eroticism that, until fairly recently, scholars, critics, and historians have read as being as clearly delimited as modern sexual identities.' Journal of British Studies