Michael Bibler, Same-Sex Intimacy in Fiction about Southern Plantations; Southern Spaces

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 Fiction about Southern Plantations | Recommended Resources

Same-Sex Intimacy in the Fiction of Southern Plantations:

Part 1 (8:08 min.) RealMedia Windows Media QuickTime	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.) RealMedia Windows Media QuickTime	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.) RealMedia Windows Media QuickTime	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.)

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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.

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Presentation Sections:

Same-Sex Intimacy in Fiction about Southern Plantations | Recommended Resources