Unhistorical Shakespeare : Queer Theory in Shakespearean Literature and Film

Unhistorical Shakespeare argues against the ideas of difference that underpin historicist studies of the past and its desires, offering, instead, the idea of homo-history to engage with issues of narcissism, anachronism, and recursiveness in conjunction with sexual desire. "Unhistorical Shakespeare argues that the way in which we study history has significant bearing on what desire we study and how we study it. Menon argues that our embrace of difference as the template for relating past and present produces a heterotemporality in which chronology determines identity. In turn, such an understanding of history fixes sexual identity as the domain of the present and relegates nebulous desire to a thing of the past. In contrast to this temporal-sexual reification, Unhistorical Shakespeare outlines the idea of homohistory, which questions the fundamental historicist assumptions of teleology, facticity, citation, origins, and authenticity to lay bare their investments in compulsory heterotemporality."--Jacket Front Matter ....Pages i-xi The Argument (Madhavi Menon)....Pages 1-25 Teleology (Madhavi Menon)....Pages 27-50 Facts (Madhavi Menon)....Pages 51-71 Citation (Madhavi Menon)....Pages 73-93 Origins (Madhavi Menon)....Pages 95-114 Authenticity (Madhavi Menon)....Pages 115-137 The Anecdote (Madhavi Menon)....Pages 139-142 Back Matter ....Pages 143-195