Description
Book SynopsisMarlon B. Ross explores the figure of the sissy as central to how Americans have imagined, articulated, and negotiated black masculinity from the 1880s to the present.
Trade Review“In this remarkable work of African American intellectual history, Marlon B. Ross refuses to allow the sloppy modes of thought that have us tripping over the distinction between gender conduct and sexual orientation. He is vigilant about the matter of maintaining a distinction between the sissy and the homosexual. This long-overdue study will have a very large impact on queer studies, masculinity studies, and African American studies.” -- Robert F. Reid-Pharr, author of * Archives of Flesh: African America, Spain, and Post-humanist Critique *
“
Sissy Insurgencies is a model of careful historical and literary analysis from a scholar who has made an indelible mark on masculinity studies, black studies, and queer of color critique. Ambitious and far reaching in scope, this book is a stunning work of sissy insurgent genius.” -- C. Riley Snorton, author of * Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity *
"Including considerations of and references to works by Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Amiri Baraka, among others,
Sissy Insurgencies is as much a provocative literary study of African-American fiction and autobiography as it is an examination of the role of the sissy in Black and mainstream American culture." -- Reginald Harris * Gay and Lesbian Review *
Table of ContentsPreamble. Sissies Everywhere ix
1. Can the Sissy Be Insurgent? 1
2. Sissy Housekeeping: Cleanliness, Gender Dissonance, and the Spoils of Political Patronage at Washington's Tuskegee 51
3. Un/fit Manliness: Evading Masculine Brutality in James Weldon Johnson's Sissy Narratives 111
4. Baldwin's Sissy Heroics 165
5. Sissy but Not Gay: Anatomy of the Post-Civil Rights Straight Black Sissy 233
6. Gay but Not Sissy: Race and the Queering of the Professional Athlete 283
Postscript. Whatever Happened or Will Happen to the Sissy-Boy? 343
Notes 349
Bibliography 403
Index 433
