May-June 2005
SOME DUST has begun to settle on C. A. Tripp’s controversial new book, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln. For several weeks after the book’s publication last January, the media swirled with news reports, interviews, editorial cartoons, online forums, and even satires. The reviews have been surprisingly positive-but …
MoreAS THE WORLD reaches flash-point over same-sex marriage, the United States is galloping madly in one direction-to deny civil marriage to gays. Yet many countries in Europe are galloping in the opposite direction-towards giving civil status to same-sex relationships in some way. …
MoreTHIS IS the first published biography of Charles Flandrau, a novelist, critic, and short story writer for the Saturday Evening Post, called “the best essayist in America” by New Yorker drama critic Alexander Woollcott in 1935. …
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SIR PHILIP SIDNEY supposedly said, “Only a fool has never written a sonnet, and only a fool has written more than one sonnet.” But Sidney wrote scores of them, and Shakespeare penned over 150. Edmund Miller has surpassed both poets in sheer quantity. …
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THE FILMS of Derek Jarman are difficult to categorize. Ethereal, sensual, and for the most part without a clear narrative line, they reflect his varied creative talents and resonate with his ruling passions. In addition to his film work, Jarman was also an accomplished painter, designer, and poet. These interests all played a role in shaping his unique films, as did his interest in an arcane mix of subjects that included Jungian psychology and symbolism, the life and work of Renaissance magus John Dee, and the work of William Blake. …
MoreLAURA J. MERRELL’S response to my review of Beyond Shame, by Patrick Moore, in the January-February 2005 issue of this journal was in several ways so strangely unmeasured a rejoinder-half the length of my entire review-that I felt that it deserved attention and response. …
MoreGay scholar and poet David Bergman called him the gayest poet of World War II, and National Endowment for the Arts chief Dana Gioia called him the best Catholic poet of the latter half of the 20th Century. This is Dunstan Thompson, who has always been one of my favorite poets. But, today, who has ever heard of him? …
MoreON MAY 7, 2004, in Krakow, skinheads from a far right parliamentary party, the League of Polish Families, attacked a peaceful demonstration of gays, lesbians, and their supporters with slurs and stones and caustic acid. On November 20, in Poznan, skinheads of the League fired teargas at the feminist and anti-homophobic March of Equality. Assaults on women and minorities have risen since Poland joined the European Union on May 1, 2004. Poland’s joining the EU was seen by the League of Polish Families as a national humiliation, and support for the League has been growing in the intervening year. …
MoreIN JUNE 1997, the Centre Pompidou hosted the first conference on queer theory in France. When the presentations were done and the discussion was opened to the floor, I was surprised by the hostile tone of many of the questions and reactions from the audience. …
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