"Startling and provocative. . . . Reid-Pharr presents a cogent analysis that combines the personal with the political, the intellectual with the emotional and the erotic. . . . Reid-Pharr's ability to move these works-and their themes-from the limited analysis of the academy into a broader realm of lived experience and social context that makes them, as well as Reid-Pharr's own thoughts, vital and genuinely consequential."--Publisher's Weekly

"Repeated readings are richly rewarded."
—CHOICE"Reid-Pharr brilliantly puts the ambivalences of bodily pleasure back into the serious business of identity politics."
—Project Muse Book Review

At turns autobiographical, political, literary, erotic, and humorous, <ti1>Black Gay Man</ti1> will spoil our preconceived notions of not only what it means to be black, gay and male but also what it means to be a contemporary intellectual. Both a celebration of black gay male identity as well as a powerful critique of the structures that allow for the production of that identity, <ti1>Black Gay Man</ti1> introduces the eloquent new voice of Robert Reid-Pharr in cultural criticism.

At once erudite and readable, the range of topics and positions taken up in <ti1>Black Gay Man</ti1> reflect the complexity of American life itself. Treating subjects as diverse as the Million Man March, interracial sex, anti-Semitism, turn of the century American intellectualism as well as literary and cultural figures ranging from Essex Hemphill and Audre Lorde to W.E.B. DuBois, Frantz Fanon and James Baldwin, <ti1>Black Gay Man</ti1> is a bold and nuanced attempt to question prevailing ideas about community, desire, politics and culture. Moving beyond critique, Reid-Pharr also pronounces upon the promises of a new America. With the publication of <ti1>Black Gay Man</ti1>, Robert Reid-Pharr is sure to take his place as one of this country's most exciting and challenging left intellectuals. [close]