Willa Cather: Queering America
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.15 (585 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0231113250 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 190 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-12-23 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
She brings history to queer theory, and queer theory to life in a remarkable book that should be required reading not just for scholars interested in Cather, the turn-of-the-century U.S., or queer theory but also for anyone interested in an example of what scholarship and theory at their best can do." --Priscilla Wald author of Constituting Americans: Cultural Anxiety and Narrative Form. Martin author of The Homosexual Tradition in American Poetry"Lindemann offers a refreshing and critically informed approach to Cather's work. In its attempt to review and rethink the best queer theory of the past decade, it will be illuminating as well for all students of twentieth-century American literature and all theorists interested in questions of minority representation." --David Van Leer, University of California - Davis, Journal of American
Marilee Lindemann is assistant professor of English at the University of Maryland. She has edited recent editions of Cather's Alexander's Bridge and O Pioneers! and has written articles in collections including Modern American Women Writers and The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage.
Daring and Provocative Lindemann's deft analysis of Cather and her "queer" sensibilities is a refreshing change of pace from the boring, disconnected aesthetic-based criticism that has dominated Cather studies for some time now. Written in a delightfully engaging prose style, _Willa Cather: Queering America_ provides us with insight into the next phase of Cather scholarship that dares to situ. Not for the uninitiated I am currently taking an undergraduate course on Cather, and I hoped that this book would provide some insight into a side of her not covered in the course. However, I found the book full of jargon which rendered it incomprehensible to me. Perhaps if you are already initiated into the world of "queer studies" you will find it interesting, but I don't recommend it for a
What, then, can a reassessment of this contentious first lady of American letters add to an understanding of the gay identities that have emerged in America over the past century? As Marilee Lindemann shows in this study of the novelist's life and work, Cather's sexual coming-of-age occurred at a time when a cultural transition was recasting love between women as sexual deviance rather than romantic friendship. Willa Cather: Queering America is an enlightening unpacking of Cather's writings, from her controversial love letters of the 1890s--in which "queer" is employed to denote sexual deviance--to her epic novels, short stories, and critical writings. Although it h