On Sexuality and Power

This book argues that hierarchies in interpersonal relations are inextricably linked to 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. The book 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.

Alan Sinfield teaches in the English Department at Sussex University. He is the author of Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theatre in the Twentieth Century and The Wilde Century: Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde, and the Queer Moment, among other books. He lives in Brighton, UK.