The first extensive study of gay and lesbian historical fiction, this book demonstrates how the highly popular genre helps us understand gay and lesbian history. It shows not only why the genre should be taken more seriously by historians but also how it implicitly works to ameliorate divisions between Christianity and homosexuality. The book contends that gay and lesbian historical fictions model ways of approaching sexual and historical mystery not as a threat to understanding but as its ground. These fictions thus implicitly undermine the supposed dichotomy between secular and sacred ways of knowing, thereby expanding the resources for ethical debate about homosexuality.
Author(s): Norman W. Jones
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 232
Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 9
Introduction: Spot the Homo: Definitions......Page 14
One: Mysterious Hauntings and Revisionist Histories......Page 54
Two: Romancing the Past: The Uses of Identification......Page 85
Three: Coming-Out Stories As Conversion Narratives......Page 115
Four: Familiar Stories from Strange Bedfellows: Chosen Community......Page 158
Afterword: Can We Talk?......Page 198
Notes......Page 200
Works Cited......Page 208
Annotated Bibliography......Page 218
B......Page 224
D......Page 225
G......Page 226
J......Page 227
M......Page 228
R......Page 229
T......Page 230
Z......Page 231
