The Rhetoric of the Other

The authors throw light on the peculiar conditions that have made French culture unreceptive to the idea that sexual subcultures form a legitimate object of serious study, and they make considerable progress towards redressing this situation as it applies to American French studies. The Rhetoric of the Other explores dominant and queer traditions by focusing on four areas of inquiry: queer pedagogy, queer readings from Diderot to Proust, Francophone contexts, and gay and lesbian invisibilities. The contributions in this collection relate to early modern and modern topics as well as more contemporary ones, and they range over the fields of literature, film and cultural studies. In addition to France itself, the French-speaking Caribbean and the province of Quebec are also represented. This is a collected volume of unsual quality and interest, which will be important to many with a professional and/or critical interest in French and French-speaking literature, cultural studies, and Gay, Lesbian and Queer studies.