Lesbian/gay/queer

Question 0

Textual evidence

Answer 0

Homosocial bonding; gay or lesbian signs; same sex doubles; transgressive sexuality

Question 1

What do lesbian and gay critics do?

Answer 1

Establish canon; identify lesbian and gay episodes in mainstream work; expose homophobia; focus on homosexual aspects of mainstream lit that have been glossed over

Question 2

Overlapping themes

Answer 2

Coming out, learning the ropes, first sexual encounter, internalized homophobia

Question 3

Heterocentrism

Answer 3

“heterocentrism”: assuming that “heterosexuality is the universal norm by which everyone’s experience can be understood” (Tyson 321)

Question 4

Sexual orientation

Answer 4

A fundamental category of historical analysis and understanding

Question 5

Lesbian continuum

Answer 5

Wide variety of female behavior - suggesting interconnections among the various ways in which women bond together

Question 6

Lesbian feminism

Answer 6

Own origins within feminism

Question 7

Gay sensibilities

Answer 7

How does being gay influence the way one sees the world, sees the world, sees oneself and others, creates and responds to art and music, creates and interprets lit, or experiences and expresses emotion

Question 8

Drag

Answer 8

Dressing in women’s clothing

Question 9

Camp

Answer 9

Form of expression characterized by irreverence, artifice, exaggeration, and theatrically

Question 10

Queer

Answer 10

Criticism reads texts to reveal the problematic quality of their representations of sexual categories - to show the various ways in which the various ways in which the categories homosexual and heterosexual break down, overlap, or do not adequately represent the dynamic range of human sexuality