The theme of the monster, that John pointed out in our last class, continues to resurface throughout Books 3 and 4 of Middlesex. What is interesting to note is that the point when Cal finally accepts him/herself as a unique being, not a monster, is when his/her body is displayed in a freak show of […]
More Than Something Gone Wrong: A Life Born of Fate Calliope Stephanides (of Middlesex) is much like Humbert (of Lolita) in his belief in fate. In both cases the narrators outline a series of events, down to small details, and highlight the fact that if any one of these things had happened differently their stories […]
Once again the definition of the label “homosexual” is questioned and placed on the examining table in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. “Roy Cohn is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is a heterosexual man, Henry, who fucks around with guys.” (Millenium Approaches, 46) This quote is part of a striking dialogue between Roy Cohn, a […]
The way Sula’s community reacts to both her life and death is an interesting realization of Foucault’s idea that where there is power there is resistance. Sula lives her life with a sense of power. She sleeps with whomever she wants, refuses to marry, allows her mother to be placed in a home, and lives […]
Nabokov and Kinsey present work that is provocative in the same way, though the former crafted an intricate work of fiction while the latter published research: Both writers confront the reader with a sexual matter the reader would like to deny by forcing him to recognize its presence in American life and society. This is […]
Nabokov writes with beautiful ambiguity. He uses words in a way that makes the reader question what she just read and, perhaps, turn back to read it again. An example of this is seen in Chapter 13 when Humbert apparently masturbates on the couch next to Lolita while she is oblivious to what he is […]
The issues of sexual sin within colonial culture are examined in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Documents 1. and 3. of Chapter 3 in Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality, and in Richard Godbeer’s essay Sodomy in Colonial New England. What stands out in the study of said documents is the focus on […]
The beauty of a liberal arts degree is seen when two seemingly unrelated subjects provide an understanding of each other. For example, a simple fact about crystal growth may provide clarity on the topic of sexuality within culture. Given proper conditions of temperature, pressure and space a crystal will continue to grow with virtually no […]
Michel Foucault, in the discourse relayed in his work The History of Sexuality, or L’Histoire de la Sexualité, the history of power, pleasure, and knowledge as told by referencing specific acts and records generated by a population. To explore, whatever may develop, mostly in the absence; yet only to discover renewed […]
