Description
Book SynopsisReading across the disciplines of the mid-century university, this book uses the subculture of camp to argue that the political shift in postwar America from consensus liberalism to New Left radicalism entailed as many continuities as ruptures.
Trade Review"At home in queer theory, Trask offers a revisionist discussion of postwar American culture. He marshals an impressive array of sociological, psychological, and literary prose to examine the ways in which the 'consensus culture' of the Cold War 1950s produced an ironic, self-knowing detachment within liberal academic culture . . . Recommended." -- B. Diemert *
CHOICE *
"Full of surprises, Trask's book shows how Cold War academic culture shared in the irony, detachment, and performance of 1950s camp. Or so the New Left believed, which explains why they viewed homosexuals and college professors with such suspicion. This stunning history of postwar America shows what was at stake when angry young men put their bodies on the line on college campuses in the 1960s, and it illuminates the ongoing paradoxes of Left protest." -- Heather Love * University of Pennsylvania *
