Queering the color line : race and the invention of homosexuality in American culture /

Somerville argues that there is a close relationship between American ideas about race and (homo)sexuality, and that recognizing and exploring this relationship can aid the understanding of both issues. Somerville focuses on the late 19th and early 20th century, a fertile time for the "invention" of modern ideas about homosexuality as well as pervasive racial thinking. She begins by examining the parallel rise of scientific racism and a growing interest in homosexuality within the new field of sexology, and then considers a variety of cultural and popular cultural works in which sex and race intersect: a popular novel and movie, A Florida Enchantment, about two women who undergo a magical sex change; the fiction of African American writer Pauline Hopkins; and, finally, well-known Harlem Renaissance figures James Weldon Johnson and Jean Toomer. This book raises important questions, but it does not get much beyond vague assertions of a connection between race and homosexuality and a rather fragmented look at some works that consider both themes. In addition, heavy use (and occasional misuse) of the specialized language of cultural and queer studies will put off some readers. Primarily for specialists in gay/lesbian studies. K. Blaser; Wayne State College

Black and queer studies have, for the most part, proceeded separately; here, Somerville (English and women's studies, Purdue Univ.) examines the intersections between these fields. In five essays, she looks at the writings of Jean Toomer and Pauline E. Hopkins, James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, the film A Florida Enchantment, and scientific racism. Although limited in scope, her essays do address a number of issues significant in turn of-the-century African American and gay lifeÄlike "passing" and self-identificationÄand, in doing so, raise interesting questions about the representation of race and sexual identity in U.S. culture. Recommended for all academic sociology and literature collections.ÄAnthony J. Adam, Prairie View A&M Univ. Lib., TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.