From 30 contributors--including Kate Millett, Barbara Kruger, and Sharon Olds--a richly diverse collection of essays and poetry exploring female sexuality.

Floyd brings queer critique to bear on the Marxian categories of reification and totality and considers the dialectic that frames the work of Georg Lukâas, Herbert Marcuse and Frederic Jameson.

Lesbians and gays are on the verge of winning full citizenship in Canada and a number of Western European countries. This represents a remarkable change in the 35 years since the contemporary lesbian and gay liberation movement was launched out of the Stonewall riots. These gains are the product of a social movement with a strong history of militant mobilization. At the same time, the process of capitalist restructuring has opened some of the space for lesbian and gay existence. The (...) penetration of the market deeper into everyday life has created spaces for commodified forms of lesbian and gay existence, oriented around bars, restaurants, commercial publications, fashions and hairstyles. Capitalism has accommodated elements of lesbian and gay existence in the face of ongoing mobilizations, opening certain spaces for lesbian and gay life while at the same time shutting down others. The era of lesbian/gay citizenship and commodification opens new possibilities for anti-capitalist queer marxist-feminist politics. (shrink)

In this classic work, Herbert Marcuse takes as his starting point Freud's statement that civilization is based on the permanent subjugation of the human instincts, his reconstruction of the prehistory of mankind - to an interpretation of the basic trends of western civilization, stressing the philosophical and sociological implications.

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s _Gender Trouble_ is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated (...) social _performance _rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent. (shrink)

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s _Gender Trouble_ is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated (...) social _performance _rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent. (shrink)

Difference Troubles, first published in 1997, examines the implications for social theory and sexual politics of taking difference seriously. It explores the trouble difference makes not only for the social sciences, but also for the people - feminists, queer theorists, postmodernists - who champion difference. Seidman asks how social thinkers should conceptualize differences such as gender, race, and sexuality, without reducing them to an inferior status. This is a wide-ranging and sophisticated discussion of contemporary social theory and sexual politics, presented (...) with Seidman's familiar imagination and clarity. In addition, it argues persuasively for a pragmatic approach to difference troubles in theory and politics. (shrink)

In this classic work, Herbert Marcuse takes as his starting point Freud's statement that civilization is based on the permanent subjugation of the human instincts, his reconstruction of the prehistory of mankind - to an interpretation of the basic trends of western civilization, stressing the philosophical and sociological implications.