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Queer Literacies

Discourses and Discontents

Mark McBeth

In a documentarian investigation of the major LGBTQ archives in the United States, Queer Literacies: Discourses and Discontents identifies the homophobic discourses that prevailed in the twentieth-century by those discursive forces that also sponsored the literacy acquisition of the nation. Mark McBeth tracks down the evidence of how these sponsors of literacy—families, teachers, librarians, doctors, scientists, and government agents—instituted heteronormative platforms upon which public discourses were constructed. After pinpointing and analyzing how this disparaging rhetoric emerged, McBeth examines how certain LGBTQ advocates took counter-literacy measures to upend and replace those discourses with more Queer-affirming articulations. Having lived contemporaneously while these events occurred, McBeth incorporate narratives of his own lived experience of how these discourses impacted his own reading, writing, and researching capabilities. In this auto-archival research investigation, McBeth argues that throughout the twentieth century, Queer literates revised dominant and oppressive discourses as a means of survival and world-making in their own words. Scholars of rhetoric, gender studies, LGBTQ studies, literary studies, and communication studies will find this book particularly useful.

Lexington Books

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-7936-1781-1 • Hardback • December 2019 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-7936-1783-5 • Paperback • October 2021 • $44.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-7936-1782-8 • eBook • December 2019 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Rhetoric, Social Science / Gender Studies, Social Science / LGBT Studies / General

Queer Literacies

Discourses and Discontents

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

In a documentarian investigation of the major LGBTQ archives in the United States, Queer Literacies: Discourses and Discontents identifies the homophobic discourses that prevailed in the twentieth-century by those discursive forces that also sponsored the literacy acquisition of the nation. Mark McBeth tracks down the evidence of how these sponsors of literacy—families, teachers, librarians, doctors, scientists, and government agents—instituted heteronormative platforms upon which public discourses were constructed. After pinpointing and analyzing how this disparaging rhetoric emerged, McBeth examines how certain LGBTQ advocates took counter-literacy measures to upend and replace those discourses with more Queer-affirming articulations. Having lived contemporaneously while these events occurred, McBeth incorporate narratives of his own lived experience of how these discourses impacted his own reading, writing, and researching capabilities. In this auto-archival research investigation, McBeth argues that throughout the twentieth century, Queer literates revised dominant and oppressive discourses as a means of survival and world-making in their own words. Scholars of rhetoric, gender studies, LGBTQ studies, literary studies, and communication studies will find this book particularly useful.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-7936-1781-1 • Hardback • December 2019 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-7936-1783-5 • Paperback • October 2021 • $44.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-7936-1782-8 • eBook • December 2019 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Rhetoric, Social Science / Gender Studies, Social Science / LGBT Studies / General

Author

Mark McBeth is associate professor of English at City University of New York.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Queer Literacies on the Brain

Chapter 2 Archival Tracks and Traces: Evidence of Queer Literacies

Chapter 3 Adult Supervision: Insights to Queer Silence, or Family Got Your Tongue?

Chapter 4 Teacher Teacher: Queer Literacies in K-16

Chapter 5 “Gay books? Libraries? That rang bells for me!”: Reforming Literacy Platforms

Chapter 6 Psycho-Babble: Literacies as Danger and Salvation

Chapter 7 Viral Impetus: The Rhetorical-Literate Activism of ACT UP

Chapter 8 In Conclusion, Queer Literacy’s Inconclusiveness

Reviews

Mark McBeth's book is a stirring and significant addition to queer and literacy studies. Through meticulous archival research and nuanced analysis, McBeth reveals how literacy actors, discourses, and institutions coalesced in their attempts to control and thwart homosexual life, desires, and knowledges and how queer literates continually and inventively resisted and rejected their strictures. Replete with tales of subversive librarians, rhetorically-savvy activists, and tenacious queer inquisitors, this book provides an essential account of how queer people worked to shape their own lives and literacies throughout the tumultuous, and sometimes wondrous, landscape of 20th-century North American life.
— Tara Pauliny, The City University of New York

Queer Literacies

Discourses and Discontents

Mark McBeth

Queer Literacies

Discourses and Discontents

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