Description
Book SynopsisArgues for the uses of queer, feminist transnational theory in order to understanding South Asian and South Asian diasporic identities and cultural production.
Trade Review“Boldly spanning Hindi film, British Asian music, Urdu literature, diasporic postcolonial literature and film, U.S. queer activism, and feminist politics, Gayatri Gopinath argues that queer desire becomes central to the ways in which national and diasporic histories are told when the erotics of power is acknowledged.
Impossible Desires is a deft demonstration of both queer theory’s dominant ethnocentrism and diaspora and postcolonial studies’ heteronormativity and androcentrism.”—Ranjana Khanna, author of
Dark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism“Gayatri Gopinath’s innovative book marks a new stage in queer and diasporic studies. Incisive, expansive, and nuanced, Gopinath’s analysis will surely be invoked by academics in the future. A landmark piece of scholarship!”—Martin F. Manalansan IV, author of
Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora“[T]his smart and well-written book signals a sea change in the field. . . .
Impossible Desires stands as a pathbreaking work, addressing persistent exclusions in both feminist and queer literatures on South Asian public culture and significantly reworking current conceptualizations of diaspora.” -- Lawrence Cohen * Journal of Asian Studies *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
1. Impossible Desires: An Introduction 1
2. Communities of Sound: Queering South Asian Popular Music in the Diaspora 29
3. Surviving Naipaul: Housing Masculinity in A House for Mr. Biswas, Surviving Sabu, and East Is East 63
4. Bollywood/Hollywood: Queer Cinematic Representation and the Perils of Translation 93
5. Local Sites/Global Contexts: The Transnational Trajectories of Fire and "The Quilt" 131
6. Nostalgia, Desire, and Diaspora: Funny Boy and Cereus Blooms at Night 161
7. Epilogue: Queer Homes in Diaspora 187
Notes 195
Bibliography 221
Filmography 235
Index 237
