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Introduction To Curiouser: On The Queerness Of Children, Steven Bruhm, Natasha Hurley

Steven Bruhm

No abstract provided.

Curiouser: On The Queerness Of Children, Steven Bruhm, Natasha Hurley

Steven Bruhm

Our culture has a dominant narrative about children: they are (and should stay) innocent of sexual desires and intentions. At the same time, children are officially, tacitly, assumed to be heterosexual. Curiouser is a book about this narrative and what happens when it takes an unexpected, or queer, turn—when the stories of childhood must confront a child whose play does not conform to the ideal of child (a)sexuality.

The contributors to Curiouser examine the ostensibly simple representations of children that circulate through visual images, life narrative, children’s literature, film, and novels. At issue in these essays are the stories we …

Reflecting Narcissus: A Queer Aesthetic, Steven Bruhm

Steven Bruhm

The figure of Narcissus, literally falling for himself, has profoundly influenced Western philosophy and literary theory: he signifies transcendental idealism and its nemesis, vanity; he underlies autoeroticism and misogyny; he has a crucial place in poststructuralist French thought. Yet, for all this, Narcissus is rarely if ever seen in his primary attitude-as a man erotically desiring another man.

In Reflecting Narcissus, Steven Bruhm traces the complex uses of Narcissus in cultural and aesthetic formulations from the eighteenth century to the present and returns Narcissus's essential homoeroticism to a central place in this history. Extending the horizons of queer, feminist, and …

Queer Looking, Queer Acting: Lesbian And Gay Vernacular, By Robin Metcalfe, Steven Bruhm

Steven Bruhm

No abstract provided.