ABSTRACT
In this book, Sedgwick examines texts from Europe and America such as Wilde, Nietzsche and Proust and considers the historical moment when sexual orientation came to be as important a signifier of personhood as gender had been for centuries. In doing this, Sedgwick provides a history of sexuality that contends that the dualistic homo/heterosexual model is as much a basis for modern culture as it is an outcome of it. Thus, Sedgwick laid the foundations of Queer Theory, contributing to the contemporary debates regarding the relationship between desire and normative structures of power, the question of empirical sexuality, and the intricacies of the relationship between sexuality and gender.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section 1|17 pages
Influences
module 1|4 pages
The Author and the Historical Context
module 2|3 pages
Academic Context
module 3|5 pages
The Problem
module 4|4 pages
The Author’s Contribution
section 2|18 pages
Ideas
module 5|6 pages
Main Ideas
module 6|4 pages
Secondary Ideas
module 7|4 pages
Achievement
module 8|3 pages
Place in the Author’s Work
section 3|19 pages
Impact
module 9|5 pages
The First Responses
module 10|4 pages
The Evolving Debate
module 11|4 pages
Impact and Influence Today
module 12|5 pages
Where Next?