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Reading Sedgwick

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Book

Pages: 320

Illustrations: 19 illustrations (incl. 18 in color)

Published: October 2019

Editor: Lauren Berlant

Contributors: Lee Edelman, Judith Butler, Jason Edwards, Ramzi Fawaz, H. A. Sedgwick, Jane Gallop, Jonathan Goldberg, Michael Moon, José Esteban Muñoz, Christopher Nealon, Andrew Parker, Karin Sellberg, Michael Snediker, Melissa Solomon, Robyn Wiegman, Kathryn Bond Stockton, Meridith Kruse, Denis Flannery

Subjects
Cultural Studies > Affect Theory, Literature and Literary Studies > Literary Theory, Gender and Sexuality > Queer Theory

Over the course of her long career, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick became one of the most important voices in queer theory, and her calls for reparative criticism and reading practices grounded in affect and performance have transformed understandings of affect, intimacy, politics, and identity. With marked tenderness, the contributors to Reading Sedgwick reflect on Sedgwick's many critical inventions, from her elucidation of poetry's close relation to criticism and development of new versions of queer performativity to highlighting the power of writing to engender new forms of life. As the essays in Reading Sedgwick demonstrate, Sedgwick's work is not only an ongoing vital force in queer theory and affect theory; it can help us build a more positive world in the midst of the bleak contemporary moment.

Contributors. Lauren Berlant, Kathryn Bond Stockton, Judith Butler, Lee Edelman, Jason Edwards, Ramzi Fawaz, Denis Flannery, Jane Gallop, Jonathan Goldberg, Meridith Kruse, Michael Moon, José Esteban Muñoz, Chris Nealon, Andrew Parker, H. A. Sedgwick, Karin Sellberg, Michael D. Snediker, Melissa Solomon, Robyn Wiegman

Praise

“Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's writing remains indispensable, never more so than now when the light of her intelligence illuminates a darkening horizon. We need her intelligence, her queer sensibility, and her way with words. Reading Sedgwick will be welcome both for those encountering her for the first time and as a reprise for those wishing to be reminded of her work's particular charm, enlivening curiosity, and power.” - Christina Crosby, author of A Body, Undone: Living on after Great Pain

"This volume is required reading in queer studies. Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty." - D. M. Jarrett, Choice

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Awards Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

Lauren Berlant is George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, coauthor of The Hundreds and author of Cruel Optimism, both also published by Duke University Press.

Preface. Reading Sedgwick, Then and Now / Lauren Berlant 1
Introduction. "An Open Mesh of Possibilities": The Necessity of Eve Sedgwick in Dark Times / Ramzi Fawaz 6
Note. From H. A. Sedgwick / H. A. Sedgwick 34
1. What Survives / Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman 37
2. Proust at the End / Judith Butler 63
3. For Beauty Is a Series of Hypotheses? Sedgwick as Fiber Artist / Jason Edwards 72
4. In / Denis Flannery 92
5. Early and Earlier Sedgwick / Jane Gallop 113
6. Eve's Future Figures / Jonathan Goldberg 121
7. Sedgwick's Perverse Close Reading and the Question of an Erotic Ethics / Meredith Kruse 132
8. On the Eve of the Future / Michael Moon 141
9. Race, Sex, and the Incommensurate: Gary Fisher with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick / José Esteban Muñoz 152
10. Sedgwick Inexhaustible / Chris Nealon 166
11. The Age of Frankenstein / Andrew Parker 178
12. Queer Patience: Sedgwick's Identity Narratives / Karin Sellberg 189
13. Weaver's Handshake: The Aesthetics of Chronic Objects (Sedgwick, Emerson, James) / Michael D. Snediker 203
14. Eighteen Things I Love about You / Melissa Solomon 236
15. Eve's Triangles: Queer Studies Beside Itself / Robyn Wiegman 242
Afterword / Kathryn Bond Stockton 274
Acknowledgments 279
Bibliography 281
Contributors 295
Index 299

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Awards

Lauren Berlant is the recipient of the 2019 Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the American Literature Section of Modern Language Association.