The 1840s, 50s, and 60s: three decades during which the British feminist movement saw some of its most intense activity of the nineteenth-century, and readers find some of the most monstrous, troubling representations of women by male writers in all of literary history. In Fixing Patriarchy, Donald E. Hall suggests that feminism at mid-century posed intertwined social, economic, political and psychological threats to patriarchy. Hall explores the metamorphic nature of Victorian definitions of masculinity and femininity through an analysis of male authors such as Dickens, Tennyson, Kingsley, Thackeray, Hughes, Collins, and Trollope in dialogue with Victorian feminists and other women writers.

Synthesizing historical research with pertinent queer, feminist, post-structuralist, and materialist theories, Hall locates both startling admissions of moral fallibility and violent strategies of retrenchment and containment of this perceived threat to the male social body. Fixing Patriarchytraces parallels among Victorian discourses of religion, science, economics, and aesthetics, as it explores a cultural dynamic of un-fixedness and heightened desires for fixity.

Muscular Christianity was an important religious, literary and social movement of the mid-nineteenth century. This volume draws on recent developments in culture and gender theory to reveal ideological links between muscular Christianity and the work of novelists and essayists, including Kingsley, Emerson, Dickens, Hughes, MacDonald and Pater, and to explore the use of images of hyper-masculinized male bodies to represent social as well as physical ideals. Muscular Christianity argues that the ideologies of the movement were extreme versions of common cultural conceptions, and that anxieties evident in Muscular Christian texts, often manifested through images of the body as a site of socio-political conflict, were pervasive throughout society. Throughout, muscular Christianity is shown to be at the heart of issues of gender, class and national identity in the Victorian age.

Reading Sexualities confronts the reigning practices, priorities, and preoccupations of queer theory and sexuality studies. Looking at a range of texts, from novels to travel narratives to internet porn, Donald E. Hall deftly weaves the theoretical with the literary in order to:

• examine the vexed ethical, critical, and political questions arising from sexual consumerism and cross-cultural encounters
• read the changing landscape of sexual identity, finding great cause for optimism and enthusiastic engagement
• urge readers to embrace a far-reaching dialogic practice as a mechanism for furthering radical social change.

Reading Sexualities shows how our sexual desires and bases for identification are being widely challenged and changed. Drawing on hermeneutic theory and the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hall argues that by approaching sexual diversity with openness and humility, we become active participants in the politically urgent process of reading the self through the perspective of the other.

Is bisexuality coming out in America? Bisexual characters are surfacing on popular television shows and in film. Newsweek proclaims that a new sexual identity is emerging. But amidst this burgeoning acknowledgment of bisexuality, is there an understanding of what it means to be bisexual in a monosexual culture?

RePresenting Bisexualities seeks to answer these questions, integrating a recognition of bisexual desire with new theories of gender and sexuality. Despite the breakthroughs in gender studies and queer studies of recent years, bisexuality has remained largely unexamined. Problematic sexual images are usually attributed either to homosexual or heterosexual desire while bisexual readings remain unexplored. The essays found in RePresenting Bisexualities discuss fluid sexualities through a variety of readings from the fence, covering texts from Emily Dickinson to Nine Inch Nails. Each author contributes to the collection a unique view of sexual fluidity and transgressive desire. Taken together, these essays provide the most comprehensive bisexual theory reader to date.

Muscular Christianity was an important religious, literary and social movement of the mid-nineteenth century. This volume draws on recent developments in culture and gender theory to reveal ideological links between muscular Christianity and the work of novelists and essayists, including Kingsley, Emerson, Dickens, Hughes, MacDonald and Pater, and to explore the use of images of hyper-masculinized male bodies to represent social as well as physical ideals. Muscular Christianity argues that the ideologies of the movement were extreme versions of common cultural conceptions, and that anxieties evident in Muscular Christian texts, often manifested through images of the body as a site of socio-political conflict, were pervasive throughout society. Throughout, muscular Christianity is shown to be at the heart of issues of gender, class and national identity in the Victorian age.

Is bisexuality coming out in America? Bisexual characters are surfacing on popular television shows and in film. Newsweek proclaims that a new sexual identity is emerging. But amidst this burgeoning acknowledgment of bisexuality, is there an understanding of what it means to be bisexual in a monosexual culture?

RePresenting Bisexualities seeks to answer these questions, integrating a recognition of bisexual desire with new theories of gender and sexuality. Despite the breakthroughs in gender studies and queer studies of recent years, bisexuality has remained largely unexamined. Problematic sexual images are usually attributed either to homosexual or heterosexual desire while bisexual readings remain unexplored. The essays found in RePresenting Bisexualities discuss fluid sexualities through a variety of readings from the fence, covering texts from Emily Dickinson to Nine Inch Nails. Each author contributes to the collection a unique view of sexual fluidity and transgressive desire. Taken together, these essays provide the most comprehensive bisexual theory reader to date.

The 1840s, 50s, and 60s: three decades during which the British feminist movement saw some of its most intense activity of the nineteenth-century, and readers find some of the most monstrous, troubling representations of women by male writers in all of literary history. In Fixing Patriarchy, Donald E. Hall suggests that feminism at mid-century posed intertwined social, economic, political and psychological threats to patriarchy. Hall explores the metamorphic nature of Victorian definitions of masculinity and femininity through an analysis of male authors such as Dickens, Tennyson, Kingsley, Thackeray, Hughes, Collins, and Trollope in dialogue with Victorian feminists and other women writers.

Synthesizing historical research with pertinent queer, feminist, post-structuralist, and materialist theories, Hall locates both startling admissions of moral fallibility and violent strategies of retrenchment and containment of this perceived threat to the male social body. Fixing Patriarchytraces parallels among Victorian discourses of religion, science, economics, and aesthetics, as it explores a cultural dynamic of un-fixedness and heightened desires for fixity.

Sometimes playful, always provocative, Professions is a collection of searching and candid conversations--ranging from dialogues to tongue-in-cheek diatribes--on the issues that face literary and cultural critics today. This volume bares professional concerns, relationships, ambitions, and insecurities about working in academe. Professions provides hard-to-get insider information for students contemplating an academic career. It also challenges professional scholars to retrieve the intellectual curiosity that drew them to scholarship in the first place while demonstrating how disagreement on controversial issues can be conducted with respect, good humor, and an open mind. Professions features: Jane Tompkins and Gerald Graff John McGowan and Regenia Gagnier James Phelan and James Kincaid Marjorie Perloff and Robert von Hallberg Judith Jackson Fossett and Kevin Gaines Dennis W. Allen and Judith Roof Niko Pfund, Gordon Hutner, and Martha Banta Geoffrey Galt Harpham Donald E. Hall and Susan S. Lanser J. Hillis Miller, Herbert Lindenberger, Sandra Gilbert, Bonnie Zimmerman, Nellie Y. McKay, and Elaine Marks

Reading Sexualities confronts the reigning practices, priorities, and preoccupations of queer theory and sexuality studies. Looking at a range of texts, from novels to travel narratives to internet porn, Donald E. Hall deftly weaves the theoretical with the literary in order to:

• examine the vexed ethical, critical, and political questions arising from sexual consumerism and cross-cultural encounters
• read the changing landscape of sexual identity, finding great cause for optimism and enthusiastic engagement
• urge readers to embrace a far-reaching dialogic practice as a mechanism for furthering radical social change.

Reading Sexualities shows how our sexual desires and bases for identification are being widely challenged and changed. Drawing on hermeneutic theory and the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hall argues that by approaching sexual diversity with openness and humility, we become active participants in the politically urgent process of reading the self through the perspective of the other.