Queer Theories (Transitions) by
Donald E. Hall
This volume
explores and aggressively expands the provocative field of sexual
identity studies. It covers the history of the terms "gay" and
"lesbian" as identity categories, the reclamation of the word
"queer" as a term of radical self identification, and the challenges
to sexual identity studies posed by transgender and bisexual
theories. Donald E. Hall also offers concrete applications of the
abstract theories that he explores with imaginative new readings of
works such as "The Yellow Wallpaper", "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde",
"Orlando" and "The Color Purple".
RePresenting
Bisexualities : Subjects and Cultures of Fluid Desire by
Donald E. Hall
(Editor), Maria
Pramaggiore (Editor)
Is bisexuality coming out in America? Bisexual
characters are surfacing on popular television shows and in film.
Newsweek proclaims that a new sexual identity is emerging. But
amidst this burgeoning acknowledgment of bisexuality, is there an
understanding of what it means to be bisexual in a monosexual
culture?
RePresenting Bisexualities seeks to
answer these questions, integrating a recognition of bisexual
desire with new theories of gender and sexuality. Despite the
breakthroughs in gender studies and queer studies of recent years,
bisexuality has remained largely unexamined. Problematic sexual
images are usually attributed either to homosexual or heterosexual
desire while bisexual readings remain unexplored. The essays found
in RePresenting Bisexualities discuss fluid sexualities
through a variety of readings from the fence, covering texts from
Emily Dickinson to Nine Inch Nails. Each author contributes to the
collection a unique view of sexual fluidity and transgressive
desire. Taken together, these essays provide the most
comprehensive bisexual theory reader to date.
Fixing Patriarchy - Feminism and Mid-Victorian Male Novelists
by Donald E. Hall
The 1840s, 50s, and 60s: three decades during
which the British feminist movement saw some of its most intense
activity of the nineteenth-century, and readers find some of the
most monstrous, troubling representations of women by male writers
in all of literary history. In Fixing Patriarchy, Donald E.
Hall suggests that feminism at mid-century posed intertwined
social, economic, political and psychological threats to
patriarchy. Hall explores the metamorphic nature of Victorian
definitions of masculinity and femininity through an analysis of
male authors such as Dickens, Tennyson, Kingsley, Thackeray,
Hughes, Collins, and Trollope in dialogue with Victorian feminists
and other women writers.
Synthesizing historical research with pertinent
queer, feminist, post-structuralist, and materialist theories,
Hall locates both startling admissions of moral fallibility and
violent strategies of retrenchment and containment of this
perceived threat to the male social body. Fixing Patriarchy
traces parallels among Victorian discourses of religion, science,
economics, and aesthetics, as it explores a cultural dynamic of
un-fixedness and heightened desires for fixity.
"Superbly integrates sophisticated theories
of gender with incisive readings of Victorian novels. . . . Donald
E. Hall's commitment to challenging established ideas about
sexuality and gender--both in the way we read Victorian literature
and understand our own culture--makes for a sharply intelligent
book." -- Deirdre David, author of Rule Britannia: Women,
Empire, and Victorian Writing
