Textuality and Sexuality

This volume presents a collection of polemic essays arguing that theories of reading are informed by sexual images, that practices of reading are inevitably sexualized, and that both sexuality and gender are themselves interpreted as texts. Firstly, the contributors speculate on the meaning of "textuality". Secondly, they turn to the question of defining woman, and consider why one should want to use or to question the word "woman" in view of the pitfalls and pleasures associated with it. Next, they address the issue of feminism. The account is selective but sets out to give a flavour of some debates and of ways in which theories of textuality must invade any account of feminist thinking. After feminism the book turns to "men's studies". The contributors sample a range of issues such as how and why some women are made "masculine", the role of initiatory rites in the construction of the ideologies of manhood, the problematics of the display of effeminacy, the dialectical counter-model for the West of the Hindu concept of man, and issues in homosexuality. Michael Worton and Judith Still also wrote "Intertextuality".