Reclaiming Sodom

by Goldberg Jonath, Jonath Goldberg, Jonathan Goldberg

Book Overview

Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, Sodom and Gomorrah represent locales in which threats to national formation are couched in sexual terms. The biblical narrative insists on a particular social invisibility for those sexual activities not blessed by the bonds of matrimony.

Reclaiming Sodom surveys a number of institutions that have had an interest in perpetuating these views: the police, the state, the church and the law. The collection ranges through biblical scholarship, an investigation of the Founding Fathers' beliefs, the legal mobilization towards the category of sodomy in 18th and 19th century England, and the US Supreme Court's 1986 Bowers vs. Hardwick decision. Analysis is provided of the ways in which the Judeo-Christian tradition has shaped anthropological accounts of the same-sex practices of non-Western people, as well as essays on how colonial gestures have marked lesbian identity in the Carribean, and derformed narratives about the racial geography of AIDS.

Reclaiming Sodom explores alternatives to the force of the Sodomitic biblical narrative in Islamic, non-western, and western traditions, and discusses the ways in which sodomy calls into question normative definitions of sexuality and gender. The collection pursues the "pleasures and dangers" of these alternatives, and takes on Proust's refusal to imagine a social movement founded on the "stigma" of Sodom.

The collection examines the relations between sex/gender identities and sexual acts in important and provocative ways, and argues for the political use and usefulness of both Sodom and sodomy. Reclaiming Sodom makes an important and controversial contribution to the literature on sexuality and gender, as well as the nature of sex in our culture.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415907551
• ISBN13: 9780415907552
• Release Date: September 1994
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

At least one brilliant essay...

...There's at least one brilliant essay in this anthology, Leo Bersani's "Is the Rectum a Grave?" Neverminding how colourful that title is, it's a serious piece of writing, and very thought provoking. I'm straight, but was compelled to deeply question the construction of my own sexuality (and that of masculine sexuality in general) by this work, which looks at homophobia in light of feminist theories about phallocentric vs. nonphallocentric, "passive" forms of sexuality. It's been a long time since I've read it, but it fascinated me years ago and remains memorable -- a good reason to recommend this book, which I imagine is the only place said essay is still in print. As for the rest of the authors in this text, my apologies -- I don't remember if I read a single one of the other essays!