In this Book

Rereading Heterosexuality: Feminism, Queer Theory and Contemporary Fiction

Book
Rachel Carroll, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Mika Toyota
2012
Published by: Edinburgh University Press
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
summary
Heterosexuality in contemporary novels, re-examined using the frameworks of feminism and queer theory Drawing on feminist and queer theories of sex, gender and sexuality, this study focuses on female identities at odds with heterosexual norms. In particular, it explores narratives in which the conventional equation between heterosexuality, reproductive sexuality and female identity is questioned. - A timely exploration of the dynamic relationship between feminist and queer theory - Insightful close readings of acclaimed novels, including Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, Zoë Heller's Notes on a Scandal, A. M. Homes' The End of Alice, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Alan Warner's Morvern Callar and Sarah Waters' Affinity - Topics range from spinsterhood and intergenerational sexuality to transgender and human cloning

Table of Contents

open access

Cover

Half Title, Title Page, Copyright

Contents

pp. v-vi

Acknowledgements

pp. vii-viii

Introduction: feminism, queer theory and heterosexuality

pp. 1-22

Part One: Revisiting the spinster

Chapter 1. ‘Becoming my own ghost’: spinsterhood and the ‘invisibility’ of heterosexuality in Sarah Waters’ Affinity

pp. 25-44

Chapter 2. Telling tales out of school: spinsters, scandals and intergenerational heterosexuality in Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal

pp. 45-64

Part Two: Transgressive female heterosexuality

Chapter 3. Queering Alice, killing Lolita: feminism, queer theory and the politics of child sexuality in A. M. Homes’s The End of Alice

pp. 67-90

Chapter 4. Unauthorised reproduction: class, pregnancy and transgressive female heterosexuality in Alan Warner’s Morvern Callar

pp. 91-108

Part Three: Reproducing heterosexuality

Chapter 5. ‘First one thing and then the other’: rewriting the intersexed body in Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex

pp. 111-130

Chapter 6. Imitations of life: cloning, heterosexuality and the human in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

pp. 131-148

Bibliography

pp. 149-156

Index

pp. 157-160
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