American Homo: Community and Perversity - Paperback

by Jeffrey Escoffier (Author)

A sweeping account of the way lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have challenged and changed society

In this provocative book, Jeffrey Escoffier tracks LGBT movements across the contested terrain of American political life, where they have endured the historical tension between the homoeroticism coursing through American culture and the virulent periodic outbreaks of homophobic populism. Escoffier explores how every new success enables a new disciplinary and normalizing form of domination; only the active exercise of democratic rights and participation in radical coalitions allows LGBT people to sustain the benefits of community and the freedom of sexual perversity.

Front Jacket

It is rare to find a writer whose intellectual orientations so effortlessly span the gaps from political sociology to cultural studies to economic history. It is likewise rare to find a solid analysis of contemporary politics and culture in which the emphasis on identity and discourse is grounded in a concern with social structure and cultural process. The virtue of Escoffier's articulate prose is its insistent concern with the relation between high theory and the struggles of everyday life.--Steven Epstein, author of Impure Science

Back Jacket

It is rare to find a writer whose intellectual orientations so effortlessly span the gaps from political sociology to cultural studies to economic history. It is likewise rare to find a solid analysis of contemporary politics and culture in which the emphasis on identity and discourse is grounded in a concern with social structure and cultural process. The virtue of Escoffier's articulate prose is its insistent concern with the relation between high theory and the struggles of everyday life.--Steven Epstein, author of "Impure Science

"Through his three decades as an independent, activist intellectual, Jeffrey Escoffier has established himself as one of the senior statesmen in the field of gay and lesbian studies. His experience and intellectual acumen bridge both the 'town-gown' divide and the transition from gay studies to queer theory and cultural studies. This is a wise, original book from one of our finest."--Judith Stacey, Streisand Professor, University of Southern California

Author Biography

Jeffrey Escoffier is a Research Associate at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and the former Director of Public Health Media at the New York City Department of Health. He was the Executive Editor of Socialist Review (Berkeley) and one of the founders of OUT/ LOOK. He is also the author of a short biography of John Maynard Keynes and of Bigger than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema from Beefcake to Hardcore.