Search results for ""author jonathan a. allan""
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Reading from Behind: A Cultural Analysis of the Anus
'A serious work of theory.' The Guardian ‘Jonathan Allan has come up with a whole theory of the arsehole.’ Dazed and Confused In a resolute deviation from the governing totality of the phallus, Reading from Behind offers a radical reorientation of the anus and its role in the collective imaginary. It exposes what is deeply hidden in our cultural production, and challenges the authority of paranoid, critical thought. A beautiful work that invites us beyond the rejection of phallocentricism, to a new way of being and thinking about sex, culture and identity.
£21.52
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Virgin Envy: The Cultural Insignificance of the Hymen
Virginity is of concern here, that is its utter messiness. At once valuable and detrimental, normative and deviant, undesirable and enviable. Virginity and its loss hold tremendous cultural significance. For many, female virginity is still a universally accepted condition, something that is somehow bound to the hymen, whereas male virginity is almost as elusive as the G-spot: we know it's there, it’s just we have a harder time finding it. Of course boys are virgins, queers are virgins, some people reclaim their virginities, and others reject virginity from the get go. So what if we agree to forget the hymen all together? Might we start to see the instability of terms like untouched, pure, or innocent? Might we question the act of sex, the very notion of relational sexuality? After all, for many people it is the sexual acts they don’t do, or don’t want to do, that carry the most abundant emotional clout. Virgin Envy is a collection of essays that look past the vestal virgins and beyond Joan of Arc. From medieval to present-day literature, the output of HBO, Bollywood, and the films of Abdellah Taïa or Derek Jarman to the virginity testing of politically active women in Tahrir Square, the writers here explore the concept of virginity in today’s world to show that ultimately virginity is a site around which our most basic beliefs about sexuality are confronted, and from which we can come to understand some of our most basic anxieties, paranoias, fears, and desires.
£24.23
