Coming Out and Beyond: Polish and American Representations of Sexual Minorities

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12797/AdAmericam.15.2014.15.05

Abstract

This article looks at the “coming out” category in a broad political sense as the work of making the particular subject positions of LGBT minorities legible to those subjects themselves and to the public at large. Coming out thus understood includes, but is not limited to, the rhetorical act of announcing one’s sexual identity; it likewise includes aesthetic representations such as memoirs and films. This broad definition of coming out, based on Jacques Rancière’s political philosophy, enables a comparison between the political‑cum‑aesthetic work of sexual minorities in the US, especially after the Stonewall Inn riots and up to the AIDS epidemic and its aftermath, and some developments in post‑1989 Poland.

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Author Biography

Tomasz Basiuk, University of Warsaw, Poland

received his doctoral degree from the University of Warsaw in 1997 and his habilitation from the University of Gdańsk in 2014. His research interests include contemporary American fiction and life writing, critical theory, and queer studies. He published Exposures: American Gay Men’s Life Writing since Stonewall (2013), a monograph on William Gaddis: Wielki Gaddis. Realista postmodernistyczny (2003), co-edited three volumes of papers on queer studies and a volume of papers in American Studies. He edited an issue of Dialogue and Universalism on the theme Gender and Sexuality. He is on the editorial board of InterAlia, a queer studies e-journal. In 2004-2005, he was Fulbright Senior Visiting Scholar at The CUNY Graduate Center.

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Published

2014-12-30

How to Cite

Basiuk, T. “Coming Out and Beyond: Polish and American Representations of Sexual Minorities”. Ad Americam, vol. 15, Dec. 2014, pp. 55-65, doi:10.12797/AdAmericam.15.2014.15.05.

Issue

Vol. 15 (2014)

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2014 Tomasz Basiuk

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