Robert J. Corber

Stephen Valocchi

Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader is a collection of essays that over the past two decades have helped to establish sexuality as one of the most vital and important areas of study in both the humanities and social sciences. Brings together important essays that have helped to establish sexuality as one of the most vital areas of study in the humanities and social sciences. Includes an introductory essay by the editors that provides a context for this pivotal scholarship and promotes dialogue across disciplines. Discusses key issues in the field, including sexual politics, cultural construction of sexuality, transnationalism, race, community, sexual citizenship and the nation-state. Functions as a primary text for introductory as well as advanced courses, as a general introduction to the field, and as a scholarly resource.

An Interdiciplinary Reader

Queer Studies

Interpretations of Hollywood films of the 1950s and 1960s demonstrate how Cold War homophobia focused on the femme as the lesbian who posed the greatest threat to the nation.

Lesbianism, National Identity, and Hollywood Cinema

Cold War Femme

Challenging widely held assumptions about postwar gay male culture and politics, this book examines how gay men in the 1950s resisted pressures to remain in the closet.

Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity

Homosexuality in Cold War America

Challenging widely held assumptions about postwar gay male culture and politics, Homosexuality in Cold War America examines how gay men in the 1950s resisted pressures to remain in the closet. Robert J. Corber argues that a form of gay male identity emerged in the 1950s that simultaneously drew on and transcended left-wing opposition to the Cold War cultural and political consensus. Combining readings of novels, plays, and films of the period with historical research into the national security state, the growth of the suburbs, and postwar consumer culture, Corber examines how gay men resisted the "organization man" model of masculinity that rose to dominance in the wake of World War II. By exploring the representation of gay men in film noir, Corber suggests that even as this Hollywood genre reinforced homophobic stereotypes, it legitimized the gay male "gaze." He emphasizes how film noir’s introduction of homosexual characters countered the national "project" to render gay men invisible, and marked a deep subversion of the Cold War mentality. Corber then considers the work of gay male writers Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, and James Baldwin, demonstrating how these authors declined to represent homosexuality as a discrete subculture and instead promoted a model of political solidarity rooted in the shared experience of oppression. Homosexuality in Cold War America reveals that the ideological critique of the dominant culture made by gay male authors of the 1950s laid the foundation for the gay liberation movement of the following decade.

In the Name of National Security exposes the ways in which the films of Alfred Hitchcock, in conjunction with liberal intellectuals and political figures of the 1950s, fostered homophobia so as to politicize issues of gender in the United States. As Corber shows, throughout the 1950s a cast of mind known as the Cold War consensus prevailed in the United States. Promoted by Cold War liberals--that is, liberals who wanted to perserve the legacies of the New Deal but also wished to separate liberalism from a Communist-dominated cultural politics--this consensus was grounded in the perceived threat that Communists, lesbians, and homosexuals posed to national security. Through an analysis of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, combined with new research on the historical context in which these films were produced, Corber shows how Cold War liberals tried to contain the increasing heterogeneity of American society by linking questions of gender and sexual identity directly to issues of national security, a strategic move that the films of Hitchcock both legitimated and at times undermined. Drawing on psychoanalytic and Marxist theory, Corber looks at such films as Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, and Psycho to show how Hitchcock manipulated viewers' attachments and identifications to foster and reinforce the relationship between homophobia and national security issues. A revisionary account of Hitchcock's major works, In the Name of National Security is also of great interest for what it reveals about the construction of political "reality" in American history.

Robert J. Corber

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