Same-Sex Intimacy in Fiction about Southern Plantations
Michael Bibler, The University of Manchester
Overview:
 |
Speaking June 25, 2009 at Outwrite
Bookstore & Coffeehouse in Atlanta, Georgia, Michael Bibler
discusses same-sex relationships in twentieth century literature
about southern
plantations —
the subject of his book Cotton's Queer Relations: Same-Sex
Intimacy and the Literature of the Southern Plantation, 1936-1968.
He considers the ways in which same-sex character couples offer
these authors vehicles to explore modes of equality in the
intensely
hierachial
plantation structure. |
Presentation Sections:
Same-Sex Intimacy in the Fiction of Southern Plantations:
|
Part 1
(8:08 min.) |
Dr. Bibler talks about his process
of uncovering queer relationships in fiction about the southern
plantation —
a literature based in heteronormative stereotypes and hierarchial
plantation social structures. |
|
Part 2
(10:35 min.) |
Using the example of John and
Freddie, a homosexual couple who are minor characters in Ernest
J. Gaines's novel Of Love and Dust (1967), Dr. Bibler
explores how same-sex relationships disrupt the plantation hierarchy
because
they
offer unique opportunities for equality between characters. |
|
Part 3
(5:10 min.) |
Dr. Bibler concludes by looking more generally at the different
types of same-sex relationships he explores in his book, and
discusses how these relationships in the texts he addresses
work to disrupt hierarchical relationships. He outlines three
frames
for queer
possibility:
queer black fraternity, elite white planter homoeroticism, and "southern
kitchen romance." |
Question and Answer Session:
|
(11:49 min.)
|
During the question
and answer session, Dr. Bibler discusses the plantation and other
related social spaces in literature, changes in this literature,
plantation economies, and plantation films between 1936 and 1968.
He also describes the experience of teaching his
work at the University of Manchester in England. |
About Michael Bibler:
Michael Bibler received his PhD from Tulane University and is a lecturer at the University of Manchester. He is the author of Cotton's Queer Relations: Same-Sex Intimacy and the Literature of the Southern Plantation, 1936-1968 and the co-editor of a new scholarly edition of Arna Bontemps's 1939 novel Drums at Dusk and of the collection of essays Just Below South: Intercultural Performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. South.
Presentation Sections:
