Career
He pioneered the Sexual Dissidence programme at the University of Sussex with Jonathan Dollimore and continues to teach postgraduate students and research in the field of sexual dissidence at the University of Sussex.
( Was Shakespeare gay? Is The Merchant of Venice anti-Sem...)
Was Shakespeare gay? Is The Merchant of Venice anti-Semitic? How does mainstream reading differ from that of subcultural groups? In this lively and readable book, Alan Sinfield challenges the assumptions of English literature and investigates the principles and practices that may inform lesbian and gay reading.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812215427/?tag=2022091-20
( Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality is a powerful reasses...)
Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality is a powerful reassessment of cultural materialism as a way of understanding textuality, history and culture, by one of the founding figures of this critical movement. Alan Sinfield examines cultural materialism both as a body of ongoing argument and as it informs particular works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, especially in relation to sexuality in early-modern England and queer theory. The book has several interlocking preoccupations: • theories of textuality and reading • the political location of Shakespearean plays and the organisation of literary culture today • the operation of state power in the early-modern period and the scope for dissidence • the sex/gender system in that period and the application of queer theory in history. These preoccupations are explored in and around a range of works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Throughout the book Sinfield re-presents cultural materialism, framing it not as a set of propositions, as has often been done, but as a cluster of unresolved problems. His brilliant, lucid and committed readings demonstrate that the ‘unfinished business’ of cultural materialism - and Sinfield’s work in particular - will long continue to produce new questions and challenges for the fields of Shakespeare and Renaissance Studies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415402360/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XTBANLI/?tag=2022091-20
( It is widely supposed that the most suitable partner wi...)
It is widely supposed that the most suitable partner will be someone very much like oneself; gay fiction and cinema are often organized around this assumption. Nonetheless, power differentials are remarkably persistent―as well as sexy. What are the personal and political implications of this insight? Sinfield argues that hierarchies in interpersonal relations are continuous with the main power differentials of our social and political life (gender, class, age, and race); therefore it is not surprising that they govern our psychic lives. Recent writing enables an exploration of their positive potential, especially in fantasy, as well as their danger. On Sexuality and Power focuses on the writing of the last thirty years, revisiting also Whitman, Wilde, Mann, Forster, and Genet, and reassessing the very idea of a gay canon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0231134096/?tag=2022091-20
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XTBAV4M/?tag=2022091-20
(Following a first edition that generated wide-spread deba...)
Following a first edition that generated wide-spread debate, Cultural Politics – Queer Reading is a bold study of the future of critical theory and the role of gender, ethnicity and cultures within academic literary studies. An illuminating introduction to the second edition revisits the book's agenda for a new form of cultural critique and a truly political lesbian and gay studies. Sinfield renews his call for an 'Englit' that incorporates ongoing study of the cultures of ethnicity, gender and sexuality. Challenging the assumptions that have shaped the study of English literature, Sinfield engages provocatively with topics such as the gendering of literary culture, the sexual politics of psychoanalysis during the Cold War and the history of cultural materialism. He discusses such key figures as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, Holly Hughes, Audre Lorde and Jeanette Winterson. This influential investigation of the principles and practice that may form dissident reading, forms compelling argument for intellectual allegiances beyond the academy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415356512/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300081022/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K8Z97ZK/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1852425881/?tag=2022091-20
( If we come to consciousness within a language that is c...)
If we come to consciousness within a language that is complicit with the social order, how can we conceive, let alone organize, resistance to that social order? This key question in the politics of reading and subcultural practice informs Alan Sinfield's book on writing in early-modern England. New historicism has often shown people trapped in a web of language and culture. In lively discussions of writings by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Sidney, and Donne, Sinfield reassesses the scope of dissidence and control. The early-modern state, Christianity, and the cultural apparatus, despite an ideology of unity and explicit violence, could not but allow space to challenging voices. Sinfield shows that disruptions in concepts of hierarchy, nationality, gender, and sexuality force their way into literary texts. Sinfield is often provocative. He "rewrites" Julius Caesar to produce a different politics, compares Sidney's idea of poetry to Leonid Brezhnev's, and reinstates the concept of character in the face of post-structuralist theory. He keeps the current politics of literary study in view, especially in a substantial chapter on Shakespeare in the U.S. Sinfield subjects interactions between class, ethnicity, sexuality, and the professional structures of the humanities to a detailed and hard-hitting critique, and argues for new commitments to collectivities and subcultures.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520076079/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01A1MJBMY/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01A650IX2/?tag=2022091-20
(Was Shakespeare gay? Is The Merchant of Venice anti-semit...)
Was Shakespeare gay? Is The Merchant of Venice anti-semitic? How does mainstream reading differ from that of subcultural groups? How does the formal study of literature handle such questions? In this lively and readable book, Alan Sinfield engages, freely, provocatively, and wittily, with topics such as the gendering of literary culture, the sexual politics of psychoanalysis during the Cold War, and the history of cultural materialism, and discusses figures such as Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Raymond Williams, Louis Althusser, Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Holly Hughes, Audre Lorde, Thom Gunn and Jeanette Winterson. Sinfield boldly and persuasively challenges the assumptions that have shaped the study of English literature, investigates the principles and practice that may inform dissident reading, and ultimately argues that lesbian and gay intellectuals should cultivate an allegiance beyond the academy. Cultural Politics-Queer Reading is a lively and accessible account of cultural materialism written by a leading and controversial student of contemporary cultural politics. It intervenes in current debates in critical theory and in gender, ethnic, and cultural studies, and sets the agenda for a truly political lesbian and gay studies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415109485/?tag=2022091-20
( Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain is ...)
Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain is a landmark work in contemporary literary and cultural analysis. It offers a provocative and brilliant account of political change since 1945 and how such change shaped the cultural output of our time. It also looks at how and when literature intersects with other cultural forms - including jazz and rock music, television, journalism, commercial and "mass" cultures - and the growth of American cultural dominance. This edition includes a new foreword by the author.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826494757/?tag=2022091-20
He pioneered the Sexual Dissidence programme at the University of Sussex with Jonathan Dollimore and continues to teach postgraduate students and research in the field of sexual dissidence at the University of Sussex.
(Was Shakespeare gay? Is The Merchant of Venice anti-semit...)
( Was Shakespeare gay? Is The Merchant of Venice anti-Sem...)
( If we come to consciousness within a language that is c...)
(Following a first edition that generated wide-spread deba...)
( Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality is a powerful reasses...)
( It is widely supposed that the most suitable partner wi...)
( Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain is ...)
Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain first published in 1989, is a revolutionary socialist interpretation of the postwar cultural settlement and its destruction.
