Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of ShameWhy is shame so central to our identity and to our culture? What is its role in stigmatizing subcultures such as the Irish, the queer or the underclass? Can shame be understood as a productive force?In this lucid and passionately argued book Sally R. Munt explores the vicissitudes of shame across a range of texts, cultural milieux, historical locations and geographical spaces, from eighteenth century Irish politics to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, from contemporary US academia to the aesthetics of Tracey Emin. She finds that the dynamics of shame are consistent across cultures and historical periods and that patterns of shame are disturbingly long-lived. But she also reveals shame as an affective emotion, engendering attachments between bodies and between subjects - queer attachments. Above all, she celebrates the extraordinary human ability to turn shame into joy: the party after the fall. Queer Attachments is an interdisciplinary synthesis of cultural politics, emotions theory and narrative that challenges us to think about the queerly creative proclivities of shame. |
Contents
daschunds and Una Tronbridge | 10 |
of the drunken father are visited on the heads of the children | 24 |
The Shameful Histories of Edmund | 31 |
IrishAmerican Shame in New Yorks | 55 |
The Queer Turn of Shame | 79 |
Contagious Acts of Shame | 105 |
Shameless in Queer Street | 133 |
Uncanny Attachments in the | 161 |
Queer Heterotopias in Philip Pullmans | 181 |
Tracey Emins | 203 |
Tate Gallery London 20 October 199923 January 2000 | 206 |
229 | |
243 | |
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Common terms and phrases
affect American argues associated attachments become body British Burke called century chapter character chav claim concerned continues course critical cultural David death described desire diegesis emotions English episode ethnicity example existence experience expression face father feeling figure force Foucault give hate heterosexual historical homophobic homosexual human identity imagination individual Ireland Irish kind lesbian lives London look loss Materials means moral mother narrative Office original parade perhaps person play political popular position possible practices present Press pride produced queer recognition representation scene seen sense sexual shame Shameless social sodomitical space Stephen story structure Stuart Studies thing turn underclass understanding University viewer women writing York