Straight with a Twist: Queer Theory and the Subject of Heterosexuality

by Calvin Thomas (Editor), Joseph O. Aimone

This engaging collection poses the question, Can straight people think queer?   Straight with a Twist offers a refreshing look at the relation between queer theory and critical examinations of the construction of heterosexuality. Seeking to proliferate the findings and insights of queer theory, contributors explore the issue of whether and how queer theory can speak for and include the straight.  
In some of the ways that men have learned from feminism to interrogate the construction of masculinity, straights are learning from queer theory to interrogate constructions of straightness, to question their place in those constructions, and to make critical interventions into the institutional reproduction of the heterosexual norm. Straight with a Twist responds to the formulations of some of the leading figures in queer theory, considers demonstrations of the queer in television programs ("Seinfeld," for example) and contemporary films, and explores to what extent and in what ways literary texts from Shakespeare to Dorothy Allison are open to queer interpretation.  
Committed to antihomophobic cultural analysis, Straight with a Twist aims to extend the reach of queer theory and humanize the world by making it "queerer than ever."
 

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Theory

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 1999

About the author

American academic.


Librarian note: There are more authors in this database with this name. This one needs to be listed as [Calvin^^Thomas]. For the linguist , go to Calvin Thomas.

Reviews

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice start on the whole but I didn't feel that the anthology really lived up to the premise of the book, how a scholars heterosexual identity influences their use of queer theory. The afterward was quiet enjoyable and the annotated bib. at the end of each essay.

[Bart Everson]

The chapter on a queer "reading" of Seinfeld was hilarious.