Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Queer American Literature
- The Cambridge History of Queer American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Synchronic Histories of American Sexuality
- Part II Diachronic Histories of American Sexuality
- Part III Queer Methods
- How to Recognize the Queer Past before (and during) the Advent of Medicalization
- 39 Repression, Sublimation, and Latency from Charles Brockden Brown to James Purdy
- 40 Gender Variance before Trans
- 41 Female Friendship
- 42 The Medical Model and Early Gay and Lesbian Writing
- 43 “Flung out of space”
- 44 Quantifying Sex
- 45 The Pleasures of Reading Camp
- 46 The Queerness of Religion
- 47 Tracing Queer Crip Poetics in Time
- 48 Queer Print Culture
- Index
43 - “Flung out of space”
Class and Sexuality in American Literary History
from How to Recognize the Queer Past before (and during) the Advent of Medicalization
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 May 2024
- The Cambridge History of Queer American Literature
- The Cambridge History of Queer American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Synchronic Histories of American Sexuality
- Part II Diachronic Histories of American Sexuality
- Part III Queer Methods
- How to Recognize the Queer Past before (and during) the Advent of Medicalization
- 39 Repression, Sublimation, and Latency from Charles Brockden Brown to James Purdy
- 40 Gender Variance before Trans
- 41 Female Friendship
- 42 The Medical Model and Early Gay and Lesbian Writing
- 43 “Flung out of space”
- 44 Quantifying Sex
- 45 The Pleasures of Reading Camp
- 46 The Queerness of Religion
- 47 Tracing Queer Crip Poetics in Time
- 48 Queer Print Culture
- Index
Summary
“’Flung out of Space’: Class and Sexuality in American Literary History" explores the relationship between class and queer sexuality in American literary history, suggesting how neither of these histories can be understood without accounting for the other. Reading literary texts such as Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt and Richard Bruce Nugent’s “Smoke, Lilies and Jade” alongside queer theory and LGBTQ history, Lecklider suggests how class structures queer literature throughout American history, particularly since the 19th century. Particularly emphasizing how labor structures desire, this chapter argues that working-class sexualities – and their intersections with race and gender – must be taken seriously in order to fully appreciate both the contributions of queer literature and the legibility of labor in American history.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Queer American Literature , pp. 770 - 785Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024