Tropics of Desire : : Interventions from Queer Latino America / / Jose A. Quiroga.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Quiroga, Jose A.,
• MitwirkendeR: Piñera, Virgilio,; Villaurrutia, Xavier,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2000]; ©2000
• Year of Publication: 2000
• Language: English
• Series: Sexual Cultures ; 12
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

From its sweaty beats to the pulsating music on the streets, Latin/o America is perceived in the United States as the land of heat, the toy store for Western sex. It is the territory of magical fantasy and of revolutionary threat, where topography is the travel guide of desire, directing imperial voyeurs to the exhibition of the flesh. Jose Quiroga flips the stereotype upside down: he shows how Latin/o American lesbians and gay men have consistently eschewed notions of sexual identity for a politics of intervention. In Tropics of Desire, Quiroga reads hesitant Mexican poets as sex-positive voices, he questions how outing and identity politics can fall prey to the manipulations of the state, and explores how invisibility has been used as a tactical tool in opposition to the universal imperative to come out. Drawing on diverse cultural examples such as the performance of bolero and salsa, film, literature, and correspondence, and influenced by masters like Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin and a rich tradition of Latin American stylists, Quiroga argues for a politics that denies biological determinism and cannibalizes cultural stereotypes for the sake of political action.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Preface: In Drag -- Introduction -- 1 The Mask of the Letter -- 2 Nostalgia for Sex -- 3 Queer Desires in Lydia Cabrera -- 4 Outing Silence -- 5 Revolution -- 6 Tears at the Nightclub -- 7 Latino Dolls -- 8 Latino Cultures, Imperial Sexualities -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index -- ABOUT THE AUTHOR