In this Book
- Rhetorical Secrets: Mapping Gay Identity and Queer Resistance in Contemporary America
- Book
- 2014
- Published by: The University of Alabama Press
- Series: Rhetoric, Culture, and Social Critique
summary
Davin Allen Grindstaff, through a series of close textual analyses examining public discourse, uncovers the rhetorical modes of persuasion surrounding the construction of gay male sexual identity. In Part One, Grindstaff establishes his notion of the "rhetorical secret" central to constructions of gay male identity: the practice of sexual identity as a secret, its promise of a coherent sexual self, and the perpetuation of secrecy as a product and strategy of heteronormative discourse.
Grindstaff continues in Part Two to examine major issues related to contemporary conceptions of gay male identity: overturning sodomy laws; public debates over same-sex marriages; medical and social responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis; the rhetorical power of hyper-masculine body images and homoeroticism to creative communities; and, finally, what Grindstaff considers to be the most mysterious and significant rhetorical practice of all: coming out of the closet.
By investigating the public discourse--texts and images that circulate, produce knowledge, and become means of persuasion--surrounding the constructions of sexual identity, Grindstaff challenges heteronormative concepts of sexuality itself, thus creating new maps of social power and new paths of resistance.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. vii-viii
- Introduction
- pp. 1-19
- 1. The Rhetorical Secret
- pp. 20-57
- 2. The Essential and the Ethnic
- pp. 58-77
- 3. Semen and Subjectivity
- pp. 78-98
- 4. Experiencing the Erotic
- pp. 99-124
- 5. Coming Out as Contagious Discourse
- pp. 125-150
- References
- pp. 171-190
Additional Information
ISBN
9780817387600
Related ISBN(s)
9780817315061, 9780817357818
MARC Record
OCLC
879576355
Pages
204
Launched on MUSE
2015-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2006