Reviews (1)

Mediations of the Public Intellectual
This is an accessible and illuminating study of one of the twentieth century's unique public intellectuals. Though the book weighs in at only 141pp. of text, the breadth of Frank's research on Vidal is impressive. She is a bonafide fan and writes with a sense of analytical purpose and critical appreciation.
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Subjects:  1. American - General    2. Gay & Lesbian    3. Intellectuals    4. Literature - Classics / Criticism    5. Performing Arts    6. Performing Arts/Dance    7. Television - History & Criticism    8. Television personalities    9. United States    10. Cultural Studies    11. Film & Television Studies    12. Film theory & criticism    13. Gay & Lesbian Studies/Queer Th    14. Gay & Lesbian studies    15. Television    16. USA   

Editorial Review

From the time it first emerged as a renegade liberating voice in the early 1950s, beat writing changed the American social literary scene. Poets like Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti altered the sound of U.S. poetry while Jack Kerouac's bebop chant--particularly in his classic Read more

Reviews (4)

Spicer's Gnosticism
Spicer and Ginsberg influenced one another, as is clearly shown in this book.Ginsberg stole a lot of his ideas from Spicer, but he was still the greater poet because he touched upon the conversation of his times, while Spicer went whacko and had no real impact on his culture.Academics have taken up Spicer, but this has again had no echo at all in the popular culture. Essential Reading (Not An Exaggeration)
Poets in the 1950s and 1960s have been well served by some of their biographers, and in this thrilling critical treatment of Jack Spicer and the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, Ellingham and Killian join theranks of Peter Davison (The Fading Smile: Boston Poets from Lowell toPlath) and Bill Berkson and Joe LeSeur (Homage to Frank O'Hara) inmagically capturing the soul of an important school in the poetic fermentof those years. The San Francisco circle around Spicer was intense,prolific and inspired, but they didn't get the publicity that the New Yorkpoets received or that the Beats had showered on them. Lack of mediaattention didn't stop them. They were dedicated to a pure vision of poetryas an almost religious vocation. On his hospital death bed in 1965 (he diedat 40 from acute alcohlism), Spicer told friend Warren Tallman, "I wastrapped inside my own vocabulary." His genius/mania to use thatvocabulary in service of the Muse produced great work and reminded othersof the seriousness of their purpose. Spicer, in all his contradictions anddrives, leaps from these pages. The book as a whole bristles with the veryenergy it celebrates, both poetic and sexual (intrigue was in their blood),and is essential reading for all of us interested in the circles thatnurture poetry in every creative center. As if that is not enough, thequotations from a vast number of interviews of the surviving participantsmake this a delicious oral history as well as a compendium of hair-raisinggossip of the wild times in North Beach before tourists took it over fomartists.

Jack Spicer was not a Beat poet.
I have read Poet Be Like God, and I wish neither to rate it (but there'sno option available that allows one to opt out of the rating game) norreview it, but to make a correction to the idiotic Kirkus review: JackSpicer was NOT a "Beat" poet. There were a group of Beat poets inSan Francisco in the late 1950s, early 1960s (e.g.,Bob Kaufman), but Spicerwasn't one of them. His intentions in poetry were different from theirs;naturally, so was his aesthetic. Spicer was part of a triumverate of poetsthat included Robert Duncan and Robin Blaser who met at the end of WorldWar II in Berkeley, Ca., and were sometimes known as the BerkeleyRenaissance group, or more simply, and more accurately, as part of the SanFrancisco poetry scene (which was part of the New American Poetrymovement). That the Kirkus reviewer could make such an elementary andstupid mistake should be taken as a clear indicator of the idiocy of therest of the Kirkus piece of schlock. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th Century American Poetry    2. 20th century    3. American poetry    4. Berkeley    5. Biography    6. Biography / Autobiography    7. California    8. Gay & Lesbian    9. History    10. History and criticism    11. Homosexuality and literature    12. Literary    13. Literary Criticism    14. Poetry    15. Poets, American    16. Sexuality In Literature    17. Specific Groups - Male Gay Studies    18. Spicer, Jack    19. American English    20. Biography: general    21. Blaser, Robin    22. Duncan, Robert Edward    23. Friends and associates    24. Gay studies (Gay men)    25. Literary Criticism & Collections / General    26. Poetry & poets: from c 1900 -    27. USA   

Reviews (1)

Pan Lives!
As Gavin Geoffrey Dillard observes in his introduction, some of the most powerful spiritual poetry has its roots in the erotic--Whitman, Blake, Rumi, Mirabai.Like his forebears, Healey is a shaman of the word. This collection is a fitting homage to the randy cloven-hooved demigod.The poetry invokes the god into the reader (the shaman's unwitting co-conspirator). The god then reaches down, drawing forth the most carnal, and coaxes it, like a serpent, to the crown.Quickly one realizes that spirit is spirit--a continuity of being from the chthonic to the divine.
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Subjects:  1. 20th Century American Poetry    2. American - General    3. Erotic poetry    4. Fiction - General    5. Gay    6. Gay & Lesbian    7. Gay men    8. Poetry   

Reviews (33)

Witty and moving analysis of Shakespeare's fate in media
One doesn't usually expect to find oneself laughing when reading a book of criticism written by an academic, much less a book on Shakespeare.But Burt's book is frequently just that, funny to the point of making me laugh out loud.Burt has a refreshingly off-beat sense of humor, and the materials he has discovered--such as an adult movie version of Hamlet--aer themselves often hilarious as well, though not always intentionally so. But far from being just a laugh riot, the book is also a serious, critically sophisticated analysis of Shakespeare's fate incontemporary mass media, where much of hte lnagugae is cut or confined to well-known quotations.Burt's final chapter on films about teaching Shakespeare is quite moving, and Burt has the courage to raise difficult questions without pretending he is able to answer them. He is right to think that the questions are more important than the answers.Burt is to be congratulated for writing his book in a clear and engaging prose style without sacrificing the complexity of his thought.

Pioneering book
In his wonderful and fascinating book Unspeakable ShaXXXspeares, Richard Burt, the leading scholar of Shakespeare and film studies, pioneers research into the manifold ways Shakespeare enters into American popular culture.Concentrating mostly on film but attending as well to television sit-coms, Burt offers penetrating insight into everything from mainstream adaptations of Shakespeare to "low" spin-offs in which Shakespeare's language almost entirely disappears.Burt explores both what film and mass media have done to Shakespeare and also what Shakespeare enables our culture to do trhough film and other electronic media.Readers intersted in this book will be happy to know that Burt has since edited a related collection entitled Shakespeare After Mass Media and has co-edited Shakespeare, the Movie II.

Merely Telling, Not Showing
In the least scathing word I can think of, Richard Burt is inimitable.On to the bash.Come on, someone has to stand up to the plate and do it!He represents and produces the academic filth and corruption that have come to characterize this modern world.He is a bottomless black hole who uses his pretentious charm and intelligence (and devilish good looks) as forces to draw in impressionable young people to his vile inner recesses.His outer core is his classroom teaching world, where he pretends to know more than he does, and when he knows he's wrong, he doesn't dare admit it for fear of losing his pathetic reputation.And his innermost core is represented by a website entitled Naughtyprofessor.com.He's like one of those little sucker fish attached to the underbellies of larger fish, trying in vain to extract some salient substance - but he fails every time.Give it up, Burt.Read more

Subjects:  1. 1564-1616    2. Adaptations    3. Anthropology - Cultural    4. Appreciation    5. Archaeology / Anthropology    6. Attitudes    7. English-speaking countries    8. Gay & Lesbian    9. Homosexuality and literature    10. Literary Criticism    11. Popular culture    12. Sexuality In Literature    13. Shakespeare    14. Shakespeare, William,    15. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616    16. United States    17. Youth    18. History and criticism    19. Shakespeare, William    20. Social Science / Popular Culture    21. Views on sexual orientation   

Editorial Review

The late 20th century has produced a great deal of writing on homosexuality, mostly centered on the lives of those in mainstream American (primarily white) culture. Sylvia Molloy and Robert McKee Irwin's Read more

Reviews (1)

okay fora limited audience only
This is a collection of academic essays on gay cultural products from Latin America, Latino America, and Spain.Unfortunately, the stodgy texts on ancient Spanish authors often drown out the cool articles about gay US Latinos.You may want to read it for the great essays about Reinaldo Arenas, especially given the success of the film about him.However, you are better off buying "Eminent Maricones" by Manrique or Cherrie Moraga's books. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American - Hispanic American    2. Caribbean & Latin American    3. Gay & Lesbian    4. History and criticism    5. Homosexuality and literature    6. Literary Criticism    7. Literature - Classics / Criticism    8. Sociology    9. Spanish American literature    10. Spanish literature    11. Caribbean islands    12. Central America    13. Cultural studies    14. Ethnic studies    15. Gay & Lesbian studies    16. Literary studies: general    17. South America    18. Spain    19. Spanish   

Editorial Review

The very idea of a Read more

Reviews (5)

A Remarkable Achievement
Woods' phenomenological journey through literature, in which he examines a plethora of perspectives that are aguable "gay," is far more than a literary survey across epochs of history: It asks the question philosophers ask: What is gay? For the most part, that question may never be answered, except in the most biological of terms. Same-sex affection and eroticism. Human diversity is truly extraordinary, and all efforts to achieve a definition, identity, and distinction beyond this expansive single feature only limits what "gayness" subverts. But such an indefinite state is difficult to maintain, if only because erotic longings draw us together in concrete ways. In every age, we need more to hold onto something more enduring, if only because our unique sexuality, standing against the grain, finds such indeterminancy intolerable, if not terribly lonely. After all, men who desire men need love, too. Or at least many of us do.
Comprehensive Survey
Gregory Woods, in A History of Gay Literature, The Male Tradition, has written a comprehensive examination of gay male literature through the centuries and around the globe.It looks at text and subtext and context to find the gay meaning or the meaning for gays in the annals of historical literature.Along the way the reader will learn new aspects of literature (such as the chapter on African poetry, to name one example from my own ignorance) and new ways to look at familiar books and poems.For all its breadth, it is wonderfully readable and somewhat addictive.It had me searching out various books to read them for myself.The writing is so good that I was equally fascinated reading about the books I had not read or did not even know about as I was reading about the others.This is a very good survey and a fun read.

An important, major survey that reads like a great history !
Poet and author Gregory Lewis has given us one of the more readable compendiums tracing the birth and maturation of gay themes and styles in literature.Many authors have approached this task as a sensational"outing" of famous writers whose true sexual preferences willalways be shrouded by the curtain of history.Lewis has chosen to dealwith actual portions of writings in a scholastic method that creates acredible case for his choices of inclusion in the lineage of gay writers.Infused with brief descriptions of the social history of the times he isdescribing (Greek, Roman, Middle Ages, Shakespeare/Marlowe, Melville,Whitman, Wilde, Forster, Genet, Gide, Holleran, Leavitt, Monette, Auden,Rechy, etc), he lays the timely mores for interpreting the written word andin doing so does not preach to his readers.And though this book isheavily footnoted, researched, and extensive in its coverage of known andless known writers, it is eminently readable!Lewis is not afraid to letus know when his "opinion" versus "cold fact" is beingstated; he allows us to grow to understand his method of decision makingand is generous in his quotations of passages that support his claims. Forthe reader who wants a gossipy book of "Secrets of the ClosetedWriters" this is not the resource. For those who want to examine theworks of Thomas Mann, Shakespeare, E.M. Forster, Henry James, Plato,Socrates (the list is endless) in an erudite manner, welcome to the feast. Lewis is a gifted historian, social commentator, and gentle philosopher. And this book is one to read over an unhurried, extended period of time. There are riches here to savour as you read and for later as a referencevolume of considerable significance. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Gay & Lesbian    2. Gay Studies    3. Literature - Classics / Criticism    4. Social Science    5. Sociology    6. Cultural studies    7. Gay studies (Gay men)    8. Literary Criticism & Collections / Gay & Lesbian    9. Literary studies: general   

Subjects:  1. English fiction    2. English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh    3. Gay & Lesbian    4. Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction    5. Gender Studies    6. Great Britain    7. History    8. History and criticism    9. Homosexuality and literature    10. Lesbian Studies    11. Lesbians in literature    12. Literature - Classics / Criticism    13. Social Science   

Subjects:  1. Gay & Lesbian    2. History and criticism    3. Literary Criticism    4. Literature - Classics / Criticism    5. Literature, Modern    6. Self-knowledge in literature    7. Subjectivity in literature    8. Cultural studies    9. Literary Criticism & Collections / General    10. Literary theory    11. Social theory   

Reviews (1)

Queer Sensibility and Today's "America"
This collection of essays clusters under the idea that the characteristic repetition one finds in American popular culture arrives by way ofrituals of "imitation and initiation" in the lives of sexual outsiders[i.e., queers].These essays are intelligent, provocative, even beautifulanalyses of such 20th-century culture-makers as Henry James, JosephCornell, Andy Warhol, David Lynch, Kenneth Anger, Maria Montez, Jack Smith,and Vaslav Nijinsky.Each essay is chattily vernacular enough to allow thereader to forget that it's academic scholarship (good for your brain) andnot just plain fun.Gossipy tidbits like Cornell's fondness for Kool-Aidand little girls enliven Moon's observations of the artist'smemory-saturated work.The way Moon re-homosexualizes an apparentlyde-homosexualized text such as the film MIDNIGHT COWBOY should inspire awholly new approach in gay and lesbian criticism.And I thought thetreatment of Charles Ludlam's and Ethyl Eichelberger's theatre, largelyignored in academic circles up to now, a fitting climax to a thoroughlyenjoyable and illuminating book.A SMALL BOY AND OTHERS deserves a wideand appreciative audience.It offers an elaboration of and a correction tocurrent understandings of the role "camp" has played in shapingcontemporary American culture. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Gay & Lesbian    2. Gay Studies    3. Gay men in literature    4. Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction    5. Gays in popular culture    6. Gender Studies    7. Homosexuality in motion pictur    8. Homosexuality in motion pictures    9. Popular Culture - General    10. Social Science    11. Sociology    12. Cultural studies    13. Gay & Lesbian studies    14. History Of Art / Art & Design Styles    15. Literary studies: general    16. USA   

Subjects:  1. Astyanax (Legendary character)    2. Characters and characteristics    3. Characters and characteristics in literature    4. Gay & Lesbian    5. History and criticism    6. Language    7. Literature - Classics / Criticism    8. Literature, Modern    9. Psychoanalysis in literature   

Subjects:  1. 19th Century American Literature    2. 19th century    3. American - General    4. American literature    5. Gay & Lesbian    6. General    7. History and criticism    8. Literary Criticism    9. Literature - Classics / Criticism    10. Masculinity in literature    11. Sexuality In Literature    12. Social isolation in literature    13. English    14. Literary Criticism & Collections / Gay & Lesbian    15. Literary studies: 19th century    16. Literature of special Gay interest    17. USA   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. American - General    3. American literature    4. Gay & Lesbian    5. Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction    6. Gays' writings, American    7. General    8. History    9. History and criticism    10. Homosexuality and literature    11. Literature - Classics / Criticism    12. United States    13. Gay & Lesbian studies    14. Novels, other prose & writers   

Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Gay & Lesbian    3. General    4. History and criticism    5. Literary Criticism    6. Literature - Classics / Criticism    7. Sex in literature    8. Literary Criticism & Collections / Gay & Lesbian    9. Literary theory    10. Political science & theory    11. Pornography & obscenity   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Authors, Latin American    3. Biography    4. Gay & Lesbian    5. Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction    6. General    7. History and criticism    8. Homosexuality in literature    9. Latin American Literature    10. Literary Criticism    11. Literature - Classics / Criticism    12. Sexuality In Literature    13. Central America    14. Gay & Lesbian studies    15. Literary Criticism & Collections / General    16. Literary studies: general    17. Novels, other prose & writers    18. South America    19. Spanish   

Reviews (1)

very interesting and fun read
As this book is a compilation of Eric's columns, the sections come in short, easily digestible chunks.The range of topics is wide, the writing is concise, and his viewpoint is insightful. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Gay & Lesbian    2. Gay Studies    3. Literary Criticism    4. Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights    5. Eric Hunter, gay, lesbian, columns, social commentary, pop culture, discrimination, stereotypes, personal essays, civil rights, gay studies, gay rights    6. Social Science / Gay Studies   

Reviews (1)

Not the usual suspects
Garber is helping to chart a new critical lineage of feminist and lesbigay studies and activism.In contrast to the received histories of these movements, in which feminism and lesbian feminism are portrayed as white, middle-class exclusionary (and humorless!) movements ultimately betrayed by their own political correctness and tunnel vision, Garber presents a more dynamic, multi-dimensional view. She focuses in particular on the contributions of working class lesbians and lesbians of color to the development of both lesbian AND queer theories, thereby "decentering" the usual suspects. Read more

Subjects:  1. Feminism & Feminist Theory    2. Gay & Lesbian    3. Identity    4. Lesbian Studies    5. Lesbian feminist theory    6. Lesbianism    7. Lesbians    8. Literary Criticism    9. Poetry    10. Sociology    11. Literary Criticism & Collections / Gay & Lesbian   

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Essays    3. Literary Collections    4. Literary Criticism    5. Specific Groups - Male Gay Studies   

Reviews (1)

Allusion to Mystic Fusion of Poetry with prophecy

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Subjects:  1. Gay & Lesbian    2. History and criticism    3. Literature - Classics / Criticism    4. Mythology in literature    5. Poetry    6. Prophecy in literature    7. Literary studies: general    8. Poetry & poets    9. Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects   

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Criticism    3. Gay & Lesbian    4. General    5. Literature and morals    6. Moral and ethical aspects    7. Philosophy    8. Semiotics & Theory    9. Social Science    10. Sociology    11. Literary Criticism & Collections / Theory    12. Literary theory   

Reviews (1)

A scholarly look at bisexuality
I felt this IS the most comprehensive book in print about Bisexuality and sexuality in general.I bought it for my own personal collection, ended up using it for a senior thesis research project on sexual identity and transitions in sexuality, and it became the most important book I used.Its pretty massive and a bit intimidating, but very readable and superbly thorough.The interesting thing about it is its call for more research and understanding of Bisexuality and sexual identities in general- throughout the entire book.It's a brilliant analysis of most of the research out there on bisexuality and sexual identities. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Bisexuality    2. Bisexuals    3. Gay Studies    4. Gender Studies    5. Lesbian Studies    6. Social Science    7. Sociology    8. United States    9. Cultural studies    10. Literary Criticism & Collections / Gay & Lesbian    11. USA