New Lesbian Criticism Literary and Cultural Readings

This work offers a number of essays on lesbian criticism which centre around the question of what and who a lesbian is. Questions are posed such as "Does 'woman' include 'lesbian'?" and "Can we speak of the 'lesbian mind' as opposed to the 'straight mind'?".;Among the texts drawn upon in the book are "Desert of the Heart" and "Oranges are not the Only Fruit". The first part of the book shows ways in which a subculture can engage with, and exploit and expand, such edifices as poststructuralism for their own political ends. The second part of the book is a selection of readings which identify this volume's particular interest in contemporary fiction and popular culture, drawing on and intersecting with the kind of work which cultural studies has pioneered in the last decade. For example, one piece, on the evolution of lesbian popular culture during the 1950s, depends upon the reappropriation of "libidinized trash" as proper objects of literary enquiry, recalling the work feminists have done recently on reclaiming popular readings for women.