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Lost Causes: Narrative, Etiology, and Queer Theory

by Valerie Rohy

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Questioning the Politics of Cause and Origin

$49.45 USD
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Paperback New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Questioning the Politics of Cause and Origin

Valerie Rohy examines how arguments about what causes homosexuality shape LGBT politics and cultural representation. Moving across popular rhetoric, psychoanalytic theory, and British and American literature from the late nineteenth century to the present, the book challenges the centrality of etiological explanation. It addresses figures of “homosexual reproduction” and traces forms of causality that are retroactive, missing, or contingent, placing literary texts in conversation with political and theoretical debates. The study frames questions of origin not as neutral explanations but as concepts with consequences for how queerness is understood.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers of queer theory and LGBTQ+ literary criticism
  • Students and scholars interested in psychoanalysis, causality, and sexuality
  • Readers studying British and American literature in relation to cultural politics

Themes

Queer theoryEtiology and biological determinismLGBT politicsPsychoanalytic theoryBritish and American literature

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Book overview

Causality dominates today's discussions of LGBT rights: anti-gay voices imagine gay proliferation through seduction, influence, and corruption, while queer communities largely embrace biological determinism, saying they are "born gay." Reading popular rhetoric, psychoanalytic theory, and British and American literature from the late nineteenth century through the present day, Lost Causes decenters etiology from queer politics, engages abject tropes of "homosexual reproduction," and considers the effects of retroactive, absent, and contingent causality.
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