Description
Book SynopsisAmerican Homo offers a sweeping interpretation of the political, cultural and economic struggles of lesbian, gay and bisexual people to reveal how sexual minorities have challenged and changed American society. These provocative essays by long-time activist, writer, and theorist Jeffrey Escoffier tracks the lesbian and gay movements across the contested terrain of American political life. Starting from an urban subculture created by stigmatized and invisible men and women, LGBT movements have had to negotiate the historical tension between the homoeroticism that courses through American culture and virulent outbreaks of homophobic populism. Escoffier explores how every new success-whether it's civil rights, marriage, or cultural recognition-also enables new disciplinary and normalizing forms of domination, and why only the active exercise of democratic rights and participation in radical coalitions allows LGBT people to sustain both the benefits of community and the freedom of sexual perversity.
Trade Review[American Homo explores] sexual revolution as a prolonged process rather than a single event, and the central and formative role of LGBT struggles within that. [Escoffier is] firmly committed to the significance of LGBT agency and grass-roots knowledge in creating the conditions for radical change. This is a landmark book that deserves to be read and re-read. -- Jeffrey Weeks, author of
What is Sexual History?Compelling and necessary! -- Cirus Rinaldi, University of Palermo
Deeply informed, conceptually potent, and essential analyses of LGBTQ histories, economics, and social life. A great deal of how I think about these things has come from his work. -- Gayle Rubin, author of
Deviations: A Gayle Rubin ReaderFor anyone interested in the history of LGBT life, both the history of the past, and the history of what may come. -- Samuel R. Delany, author of
Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders,
Dark Reflections and
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.
