Categorically Famous: Literary Celebrity and Sexual Liberation in 1960s America

Description: Categorically Famous by Guy Davidson The first sustained study of the relations between literary celebrity and queer sexuality, Categorically Famous looks at the careers of three celebrity writers-James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, and Gore Vidal-in relation to the gay and lesbian liberation movement of the 1960s. While none of these writers "came out" in our current sense, all contributed, through their public images and their writing, to a greater openness toward homosexuality that was an important precondition of liberation. Their fame was crucial, for instance, to the growing conception of homosexuals as an oppressed minority rather than as individuals with a psychological problem.Challenging scholarly orthodoxies, Guy Davidson urges us to rethink the usual opposition to liberation and to gay and lesbian visibility within queer studies as well as standard definitions of celebrity. The conventional ban on openly discussing the homosexuality of public figures meant that media reporting at the time did not focus on his protagonists private lives. At the same time, the careers of these "semi-visible" gay celebrities should be understood as a crucial halfway point between the era of the open secret and the present-day post-liberation era in which queer people, celebrities very much included, are enjoined to come out. FORMAT Hardcover LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Guy Davidson is Associate Professor of English Literatures at the University of Wollongong. Table of Contents Contents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractWhile recognizing the historical contingency of sexual identity categories, the Introduction argues against the standard queer theoretical view that these categories operate as forms of social coercion. It is proposed that an examination of the 1960s careers of three celebrity writers—James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, and Gore Vidal—puts in doubt the reflexive valorization of instability, indeterminacy, and opacity that has come to dominate queer studies. Though each of these writers had complicated relations to sexual liberation generally and homosexual liberation specifically, their work contributed importantly to the increasing publicization of gay life that characterized the 1960s and that was an important precondition of gay and lesbian liberation. Close attention to their careers necessitates a rethinking of queer theorys critique of gay and lesbian openness.1James Baldwin and Celebrity Shame chapter abstractThis chapter argues that Baldwin transmuted the matter of homosexuality—defined as shameful by American culture—into literary success. Drawing on recent scholarship on the theoretical and political implications of shame, and examining a wide range of Baldwins writings, the chapter suggests that shame was at the heart of both Baldwins celebrity performance and his representation of homosexuality and that consideration of the operation of this affect helps in understanding Baldwins complicated relation to gay identity and the liberatory politics that formed around it. The chapter concludes with a close analysis of Baldwins 1954 essay on André Gide, "The Male Prison," which, it is suggested, presents an image of queer solidarity that anticipates the sense of community that was crucial for gay liberation and that is also played out in audience relations with Baldwin—despite his own overt opposition to gay identity and his distance from the gay subculture.2Baldwin and the Celebrity Novel chapter abstractThis chapter continues the investigation of relations between Baldwins celebrity embodiment of queerness and the formation of a recognizably contemporary form of politicized gay identity, homing in on Another Country (1962) and addressing in a less sustained fashion Tell Me How Long the Trains Been Gone (1968). The chapter proposes that the novels are an apt focus for Baldwins considerations of celebrity and sexuality in the public sphere because the novel is a mode in which the relations between public and private are in particularly charged tension. The two novels are viewed as "celebrity novels," not only because they feature celebrity or proto-celebrity protagonists but also because they are extensions of Baldwins celebrity persona, in which what he insisted is the private matter of homosexuality is paradoxically bodied forth.3Susan Sontags Impersonal Stardom chapter abstractThis chapter discusses Susan Sontags 1960s work and media image in relation to the discourse of stardom. Referring to her photographed image, her essays of the 1960s, and her novel The Benefactor (1963), the chapter works with and against film-star studies to develop an account of Sontags queer iconicity. The chapter argues that Sontags star effect solicits eroticized audience attention in the very act of seeming to repel it through her vaunted "impersonality." The effect is produced by the overlap between the general operations of star construction and the impersonal aloofness of her prose. Through the queer allure of her image and her groundbreaking 1960s essays, Sontag helped promote unorthodox sexual identities and attitudes, even as she avoided association with lesbianism.4From Camp to Counterculture chapter abstractThis chapter argues against long-standing queer arguments that Sontag saw camp and the gay subculture as apolitical and that her views were homophobically tinged. Concentrating on her famous essay "Notes on Camp" (1964), other key Sontag essays from the 1960s, and their contemporaneous reception, the chapter argues that Sontag contradictorily elaborates a view of gay subcultural expression as apolitical and aestheticized and discloses an investment in sexuality itself—and arguably queer sexuality above all—as a form of freedom. Picking up on the liberatory hints within "Camp" and other essays, the chapter considers how Sontag as a celebrity intellectual helped disseminate ideas about the sexual revolution and consequently set the coordinates of what came to be known as the "counterculture."5The Moment of Myra Breckinridge chapter abstractThis chapter discusses how Gore Vidals satirical best-selling novel Myra Breckinridge (1968) helped usher in gay liberation, even while manifesting aspects of antiliberationist critique. It argues that the novels ambivalent perspective toward the emergent gay-liberation discourse is inextricably related to the category of celebrity with which Vidal also had a complicated relationship. While Vidal reveled in his fame, he was also critical of celebrity culture, and Myra Breckinridge is one of his most trenchant and extended critiques, even as it is animated by his own fannish relation to 1940s Hollywood and its stars. Yet Myra became a media event, and the eponymous narrator-heroine, like Vidal, became a kind of celebrity, albeit a virtual one. The chapter argues that Myra the novel and Myra the virtual celebrity enabled Vidal both to acknowledge his investment in same-sexuality and deflect his connection to gay identity.6Gore Vidals Sexuality in the Public Sphere chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on a heated moment in a live TV debate of 1968, in which the right-wing pundit William Buckley called Gore Vidal a "queer." I argue that this moment is a staging post in both the development of open media talk about the homosexuality of celebrities and in the unfolding of gay liberation. The moment was widely described by contemporaneous commentators as "embarrassing," and this chapter argues that thinking about the social and political implications of embarrassment is helpful in understanding how 1960s American culture positioned homosexuality and how queer theory responds to the overt representation of gay identity. The chapter argues that queer theory, because of its "knowingness" about sexuality, is unable to adequately register the revelatory, political force of openness demonstrated by Buckleys embarrassing outburst.Afterword: Visibility, Revisited; or, Delete the Closet? chapter abstractThe Afterword focuses on the relations between celebrity and queer sexual liberation in contemporary culture to demonstrate the continuities and changes in the publicization of queerness since the 1960s. It argues that the hypervisibility of culture-industry celebrities has become an important arena for the exercise of sexual visibility. While the dispensation of the open secret that pertained during the pre–gay liberation period has largely been displaced by the injunction to decloset oneself, the seemingly hard-to-shake logic of sexual identity persists, despite ubiquitous arguments that the hetero/homo binary has lost its hegemonic power to organize peoples relations to their sexualities. Arguing against the queer theoretical position that visibility is a ruse of power, the Afterword contends that the persistence and popularity of acts of celebrity coming-out indicates the ongoing urgency and vibrancy of the project of sexual liberation. Review "In his incisive account of lesbian and gay identity in the first heyday of our media and celebrity culture, Davidson finds genuinely new and important things to say not only about such iconic figures as Baldwin, Sontag, and Vidal but about making and unmaking queer politics in a time of turmoil not unlike our own." -- Michael Moon * Emory University *"A remarkably detailed star map of pre- and post-Stonewall America, Categorically Famous breaks fresh ground in queer celebrity studies. With exceptional readings of lesbian and gay VIPs, Davidson generates new buzz about how the twinned themes of liberation and luminaries advanced our unstoppable homosexual revolutions." -- Scott Herring * Indiana University *"Davidsons book is engagingly written, deftly blending historical anecdotes with close readings and theoretical analysis....[His] readings of Baldwin, Sontag, and Vidal are invariably spot-on." -- Jordan S. Carroll * Journal of the History of Sexuality * Long Description The first sustained study of the relations between literary celebrity and queer sexuality, Categorically Famous looks at the careers of three celebrity writers--James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, and Gore Vidal--in relation to the gay and lesbian liberation movement of the 1960s. While none of these writers "came out" in our current sense, all contributed, through their public images and their writing, to a greater openness toward homosexuality that was an important precondition of liberation. Their fame was crucial, for instance, to the growing conception of homosexuals as an oppressed minority rather than as individuals with a psychological problem. Challenging scholarly orthodoxies, Guy Davidson urges us to rethink the usual opposition to liberation and to gay and lesbian visibility within queer studies as well as standard definitions of celebrity. The conventional ban on openly discussing the homosexuality of public figures meant that media reporting at the time did not focus on his protagonists private lives. At the same time, the careers of these "semi-visible" gay celebrities should be understood as a crucial halfway point between the era of the open secret and the present-day post-liberation era in which queer people, celebrities very much included, are enjoined to come out. Review Quote "A remarkably detailed star map of pre- and post-Stonewall America, Categorically Famous breaks fresh ground in queer celebrity studies. With exceptional readings of lesbian and gay VIPs, Davidson generates new buzz about how the twinned themes of liberation and luminaries advanced our unstoppable homosexual revolutions." Details ISBN1503602354 Author Guy Davidson Pages 248 Publisher Stanford University Press Series Post*45 Year 2019 ISBN-10 1503602354 ISBN-13 9781503602359 Format Hardcover Imprint Stanford University Press Subtitle Literary Celebrity and Sexual Liberation in 1960s America Place of Publication Palo Alto Country of Publication United States DEWEY 810.9920664 Publication Date 2019-06-18 Short Title Categorically Famous Language English UK Release Date 2019-06-18 AU Release Date 2019-06-18 NZ Release Date 2019-06-18 US Release Date 2019-06-18 Alternative 9781503609198 Audience Professional & Vocational We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:160167727;

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