Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the Essay
- The Cambridge Companion to the Essay
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology: 440 Years of Essays
- Introduction
- Part I Forms of the Essay
- Part II The Work of the Essay
- 6 Experimental Science and the Essay
- 7 Essay, Enlightenment, Revolution
- 8 The Essay, Abolition, and Racial Blackness
- 9 The Utopian Essay
- 10 Ethics and the Essay
- 11 Essay and Empire
- 12 Unqueering the Essay
- Part III Technologies of the Essay
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …?
12 - Unqueering the Essay
from Part II - The Work of the Essay
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2022
- The Cambridge Companion to the Essay
- The Cambridge Companion to the Essay
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology: 440 Years of Essays
- Introduction
- Part I Forms of the Essay
- Part II The Work of the Essay
- 6 Experimental Science and the Essay
- 7 Essay, Enlightenment, Revolution
- 8 The Essay, Abolition, and Racial Blackness
- 9 The Utopian Essay
- 10 Ethics and the Essay
- 11 Essay and Empire
- 12 Unqueering the Essay
- Part III Technologies of the Essay
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …?
Summary
This chapter queries the notion of “the queer essay” and the idea of the essay as an intrinsically queer form. The author considers a particular tradition of essays in which “queer literary critics writ[e] about famous queer literary critics,” with emphasis on Terry Castle’s memoir of Susan Sontag, focusing on the desire for the writer to “come out” in an essay, a form by its very nature not interested in the full, disclosive out.
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- The Cambridge Companion to The Essay , pp. 182 - 196Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022