Comparative Literature Commons^™

Fantasies Of Gender And The Witch In Feminist Theory And Literature, Justyna Sempruch

Comparative Cultural Studies

In Fantasies of Gender and the Witch in Feminist Theory and Literature, Justyna Sempruch analyzes contemporary representations of the “witch” as a locus for the cultural negotiation of genders. Sempruch revisits some of the most prominent traits in past and current perceptions in feminist scholarship of exclusion and difference. She examines a selection of twentieth-century US American, Canadian, and European narratives to reveal the continued political relevance of metaphors sustained in the archetype of the “witch” widely thought to belong to pop-cultural or folkloristic formulations of the past. Through a critical rereading of the feminist texts engaging with these …

Sexuality And Textuality (Fall 2008), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

“Sexuality and Textuality” serves as an introduction to gay and lesbian studies and queer theory in an international and intercultural context. As we study the representation of sexuality in a variety of cultural contexts, we will ask and begin to answer such questions as:

How does the sexuality of a writer expresses itself in his or her writings?
How does the sexuality of a reader affect his or her reading?
How do rhetoric and language themselves inform sexuality?
Is there such a thing as a sexual culture or subculture?
Is sexuality comparable to gender, race or religion as a marker …

Gender Identities In The Contemporary Slovene Novel, Alojzija Zupan Sosic

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Gender Identities in the Contemporary Slovene Novel," Alojzija Zupan Sosic argues that perspectives of sexual identity have become prominent topics. Based on her library and publication research, Zupan Sosic proposes that in the period of 1990–2005 the Slovene novel is illuminated by a development of the personal or intimate story. In this development, changes of sexual identity evolve through the binary system of the heterosexual matrix whereby issues of sexual minorities remain. Important innovation in the Slovene novel include aspects connected to an identity formation determined by sexual identity where perhaps the most significant innovation is found …

Queer Theory And Discourses Of Desire, Louise O. Vasvári

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper "Queer Theory and Discourses of Desire," Louise O. Vasvári proposes that the multiplicity of ways that language constructs -- or silences -- the socially constructed expression of erotic desire is a necessary complement to the study of gendered and of sexual identity. Vasvári contributes to queer theory and its subfield, queer linguistics, with the term "queer" understood as more inclusive and less male-oriented than "gay" where queer theory seeks to read between and outside the lines of the dominant heteronormative discourses that studies how mainstream reproductive heterosexuality comes to be (re)produced through cultural narratives as self-evident, obligatory, …

Dorian Gray, Tom Ripley, And The Queer Closet, Jonathan Alexander, Deborah Meem

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their paper, "Dorian Gray, Tom Ripley, and the Queer Closet," Jonathan Alexander and Deborah Meem present and portray an imaginary conversation among an impossible but intriguing group of writers, critics, and fictional characters. These individuals speak in their own (published) voices, which are moderated by the author-facilitators and shaped into an extended rumination on art, the Doppelgänger, queerness, and literary influence. Through their dialogue, the actors reveal a tradition of the queer novel, running in this case from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray to Patricia Highsmith's five Tom Ripley books, whereby the closet functions simultaneously as refuge …

Review Essay: Valeria Finucci. The Manly Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, And Castration In The Italian Renaissance, Liz Horodowich

Quidditas

Valeria Finucci. The Manly Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, and Castration in the Italian Renaissance. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8223-3065-2. $24.95 paper.

Sexuality And Textuality (Fall 2001) (Whitman College), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

This course was taught by Robert Tobin at Whitman College. Professor Tobin worked at Whitman for 18 years as associate dean of the faculty and chair of the humanities, and was named Cushing Eells Professor of the Humanities. Several of the courses he developed at Whitman would make the transition to Clark, where they continued to evolve.

"This class uses an introduction to gay and lesbian studies and queer theory to elucidate important concepts in literary theory, political theory, and gender studies. The first part of the class looks at the question of the historicity of sexuality. To what extent …

Gender And Modernity In The Work Of Hesse And Kazantzakis, Evi Petropoulou

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Evi Petropoulou discusses in her article, "Gender and Modernity in the Work of Hesse and Kazantzakis," selected basic tendencies of the modern European novel, in this case pertaining to gender identity and she exemplifies her postulates with an analysis of texts by Hermann Hesse and Nikos Kazantzakis. She examines the mainly male dominated literary discourse in the work of these authors in light of their theoretical indebtedness to the thought of Nietzsche and Hegel. The study offers new insight into literary representations of gender relations in modernity and how Hesse and Kazantzakis define identity, the self, and otherness.