Literary Theory and Methodology

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Literary Theory and Methodology

• Session Three Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Theories

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Agenda

• Revisiting Postcolonialist Theories
• Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Theories
• Jeanette Winterson, The 24-Hour Dog

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Revisiting Postcolonialist Theories

• Ethnocentrism (Centre margin Western
  non-Western. Subject positions)
• The subaltern (the colonized non-elite How can
  the subaltern speak?)
• Mimicry, hybridity, diaspora

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Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Theories Key Terms

• Heterosexism
• Homophobia

5
Gay Theories Key Terms

• Desire and Sexuality (Freud)
• normal perverse
• heterosexuality homosexuality
• procreative unproductive

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Gay,Theories Key Terms

• Desire and Power Foucault
• The homosexual the sodomite
• Subject-defining identity temporary deviation

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Gay Theories Key Terms

• The inscription of homosexuality in texts
• Reclaiming aspects of gay life from non-gay
  texts
• Effiminacy, drag, camp, homoerotic, male bonding,
  homosociality

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Gay Theories Key Terms

• Reading D.H Lawrences Women in Love

9
Lesbian Feminist Theories Key Terms

• Critique of compulsory heterosexuality against
  the straight mind and the heterosexual matrix
• Woman identification
• Alternative womens communities

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Lesbian Feminist Theories Key Terms

• Adrinne Richs reading of Jane Eyre
• Heterosexual romance plot vs. A narrative of
  loving female pedagogy, nurture, and education

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Queer Theory and Criticism Key Terms

• Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with
  the normal, the ligitimate, the dominant. There
  is nothing in particular to which it necessarily
  refers. It is an identity without an essance
  David Halperin.

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Queer Theory and Criticism Key Terms

• Performativity (Butler)
• The theatrical, improvisational self

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Jeanette Winterson, The 24-Hour Dog a Lesbian
and / or Queer Text?

• Point of view
• Plot/ character
• Imagery
• Theme