Research Catalog
Male sexuality under surveillance : the office in American literature
- Title
- Male sexuality under surveillance : the office in American literature / Graham Thompson.
- Author
- Thompson, Graham, 1965-
- Publication
- Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, [2003], ©2003.
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Request in advance | PS374.O34 T48 2003 | Off-site |
Holdings
Details
- Description
- xxi, 248 pages; 25 cm
- Summary
- "Male Sexuality under Surveillance is a lively, intelligent, and expertly argued analysis of the construction of male sexuality in the business office.
- Thompson interweaves three main threads: a historicized cultural analysis of the development of the modern business office from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to the present day, a Foucauldian discussion of the office as the site of various disciplinary practices, and a queer-theoretical discussion of the textualization of the gay male body as a device for producing a taxonomy of male-male relations.
- The combination of these themes produces a study that is fresh, insightful, and provocative." "Moreover, this intriguing study simultaneously provides readings of primary texts - ranging from 1853 to 1995 - that contribute substantially to scholarship on these works while advancing and deepening the theoretical discussions from which Male Sexuality under Surveillance derives its premises.".
- "Given its comprehensive scope, Male Sexuality under Surveillance will be of interest not only to Americanists in general but also to scholars interested in gender studies and gay and lesbian studies. In addition, because of its focus on the effects of changing economic structures on material culture and social organization, scholars interested in materialist approaches to literature will find the book infinitely valuable."--BOOK JACKET.
- Subject
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [207]-243) and index.
- Contents
- Pt. 1. Managing Desire -- 1. "Dead letters ... dead men?": The Rhetoric of the Office in Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" -- 2. "And that paint is a thing that will bear looking into": The Business of Sexuality in The Rise of Silas Lapham -- 3. "A dream more romantic than scarlet pagodas by a silver sea": The Businessman and the Fairy Child in Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt -- Pt. 2. Postwar Unsettlement -- 4. "The spirit of work weaves a magic wand": From Babbittry to Gray Flannel via Tropical Incorporation -- 5. "Opaque glass bricks": Sloan Wilson's Gray Flannel Man in the Queer Organization -- 6. "I ascend like a condor, while falling to pieces": Fear, Paranoia, and Self-Pity in Joseph Heller's Something Happened -- Pt. 3. A Word for Windows -- 7. "My own plein-air Arnality bared to the sky": Shoelaces, Social Energy, and Sexuality in Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine and The Fermata -- 8. "Frank Lloyd Oop": Microserfs, Modern Migration, and the Architecture of the 1990s.
- ISBN
- 0877458480 (acid-free paper)
- LCCN
- 2002035378
- OCLC
- ocm50866782
- SCSB-4343589
- Owning Institutions
- Columbia University Libraries