Book picks similar to
Two Spirit Acts: Queer Indigenous Performances by Jean O'Hara
indigenous
lgbtq
indigenous-studies
drama
A Taste of Honey
Shelagh Delaney - 1956
Jo's greatest fear is that her illegitimate baby might be mentally deficient like her own father. To soothe, clean and cook for her is Geof, an effeminate art student, with whom she makes a temporary home. Bruised by insensitivity and rejection, the boy and girl find a very real comfort in each other.
Half-Breed
Maria Campbell - 1973
At 15 she tried in vain to escape by marrying a white man, only to find herself trapped in the slums of Vancouver—addicted to drugs, tempted by suicide, close to death. But the inspiration of her Cree great-grandmother, Cheechum, gives her confidence in herself and in her people, confidence she needs to survive and to thrive.Half-Breed offers an unparalleled understanding of the Métis people and of the racism and hatred they face. Maria Campbell's story cannot be denied and it cannot be forgotten: it stands as a challenge to all Canadians who believe in human rights and human dignity.
Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure
Eli Clare - 2017
It saves lives, manipulates lives, and prioritizes some lives over others. It provides comfort, makes profits, justifies violence, and promises resolution to body-mind loss. Clare grapples with this knot of contradictions, maintaining that neither an anti-cure politics nor a pro-cure worldview can account for the messy, complex relationships we have with our body-minds.The stories he tells range widely, stretching from disability stereotypes to weight loss surgery, gender transition to skin lightening creams. At each turn, Clare weaves race, disability, sexuality, class, and gender together, insisting on the nonnegotiable value of body-mind difference. Into this mix, he adds environmental politics, thinking about ecosystem loss and restoration as a way of delving more deeply into cure.Ultimately Brilliant Imperfection reveals cure to be an ideology grounded in the twin notions of normal and natural, slippery and powerful, necessary and damaging all at the same time.
M. Butterfly
David Henry Hwang - 1988
a visionary work that bridges the history and culture of two worlds."--Frank Rich, New York TimesBased on a true story that stunned the world, and inspired by Giacomo Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly, M. Butterfly was an immediate sensation when it premiered in 1988. It opens in the cramped prison cell where diplomat Rene Gallimard is being held captive by the French government--and by his own illusions. He recalls a time when Song Liling, the beautiful Chinese diva, touched him with a love as vivid, as seductive--and as elusive--as a butterfly.How could he have known that his true love was, in fact, a spy for the Chinese government--and a man disguised as a woman? The diplomat relives the twenty-year affair from the temptation to the seduction, from its consummation to the scandal that ultimately consumed them both.M. Butterfly is one of the most compelling, explosive, and slyly humorous dramas ever to light the Broadway stage, a work of unrivaled brilliance, illuminating the conflict between men and women, the differences between East and West, racial stereotypes--and the shadows we cast around our most cherished illusions.The original cast included John Lithgow as Gallimard and BD Wong as Song Liling. During the show's 777-performance run, David Dukes, Anthony Hopkins, Tony Randall, and John Rubinstein were also cast as Gallimard. Hwang adapted the play for a 1993 film directed by David Cronenberg, starring Jeremy Irons and John Lone.TEXT OF THE BROADWAY REVIVAL
Sister Spit: Writing, Rants and Reminiscence from the Road
Michelle TeaKat Marie Yoas - 2012
Truly amazing collection!"—Margaret Cho"Sister Spit is like the underground railroad for burgeoning queer writers. Not only in the van, but in the audiences trapped in the hinterlands of America and looking to escape. Sister Spit saves lives."—Justin Vivian Bond, author of TANGO: My Childhood, Backwards and in High HeelsA collection of writing and artwork from the irreverent, flagrantly queer, hilariously feminist, tough-talking, genre-busting ruffians who have toured with the legendary Sister Spit. Co-founded in 1997 by award-winning writer Michelle Tea, Sister Spit is an underground cultural institution, a gender-bending writers' cabaret that brings a changing roster of both emerging writers and some of the most important queer and counterculture artists of the day to universities, art galleries, community spaces, and other venues across the country and worldwide.Sister Spit: Writing, Rants and Reminiscence from the Road captures the provocative, politicized, and risk-taking elements that characterize the Sister Spit aesthetic, stamping the raw energy and signature style of the live show onto the page. Bratty poets and failed priestesses, punk angst and tough love, too much to drink and tattooed timelines—this anthology captures it all in a collection of poetry, personal narrative, fiction, and artwork. Featuring a who's who of queer and queer-centric writers and artists, the collection functions as a travelog, a historical document, and a yearbook from irreverent graduates of the school of hard knocks.Includes contributions by Eileen Myles, Beth Lisick, Michelle Tea, MariNaomi, Cristy Road, Ali Liebegott, Blake Nelson, Lenelle Moise, and many more!
Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century
Tey Meadow - 2018
Earlier generations of parents sent such children for psychiatric treatment aimed at a cure, but today, many parents agree to call their children new names, allow them to wear whatever clothing they choose, and approach the state to alter the gender designation on their passports and birth certificates. Drawing from sociology, philosophy, psychology, and sexuality studies, sociologist Tey Meadow depicts the intricate social processes that shape gender acquisition. Where once atypical gender expression was considered a failure of gender, now it is a form of gender. Engaging and rigorously argued, Trans Kids underscores the centrality of ever more particular configurations of gender in both our physical and psychological lives, and the increasing embeddedness of personal identities in social institutions.
Kes (Heinemann Plays)
Allan Stronach - 1993
Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. In this dramatization of Barry Hines's novel, 15-year-old Billy trains a kestrel for whom he learns to feel great affection.
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
Julia Serano - 2007
Serano shares her experiences and observations—both pre- and post-transition—to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole.Serano's well-honed arguments stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. She exposes how deep-rooted the cultural belief is that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive, and how this “feminine” weakness exists only to attract and appease male desire.In addition to debunking popular misconceptions about transsexuality, Serano makes the case that today's feminists and transgender activist must work to embrace and empower femininity—in all of its wondrous forms.
Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction
Lee MandeloSarah Kanning - 2012
Speculative fiction is the literature of questions, of challenges and imagination, and what better to question than the ways in which gender and sexuality have been rigidly defined, partitioned off, put in little boxes? These seventeen stories explore the ways in which identity can go beyond binary from space colonies to small college towns, from angels to androids, and from a magical past to other worlds entirely, the authors in this collection have brought to life wonderful tales starring people who proudly define (and redefine) their own genders, sexualities, identities, and so much else in between.
Albert Nobbs
George Moore - 1918
Set in a posh hotel in nineteenth-century Dublin, Albert Nobbs is the story of an unassuming waiter hiding a shocking secret. Forced one night to share his bed with an out-of-town laborer, Albert Nobbs' carefully constructed facade nearly implodes when the stranger disovers his true identity-that he's actually a woman. Forced by this revelation to look himself in the mirror, Albert sets off in a desperate pursuit of companionship and love, a search he's unwilling to abandon so long as he's able to preserve his fragile persona at the same time. A tale of longing and romance, Albert Nobbs is a moving and startlingly frank gender-bending tale about the risks of being true to oneself. With a foreword by Glenn Close.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century
M.H. AbramsKatharine Eisaman Maus - 1962
Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.
Slave Play
Jeremy O. Harris - 2020
It's an antebellum fever-dream, where fear and desire entwine in the looming shadow of the Master's House. Jim trembles as Kaneisha handles melons in the cottage, Alana perspires in time with the plucking of Phillip's fiddle in the boudoir, while Dustin cowers at the heel of Gary's big, black boot in the barn. Nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is as it seems.
Year of the King: An Actor's Diary and Sketchbook
Antony Sher - 1985
"This is the most wonderfully authentic account of the experience of creating a performance. It's full of delicate and sometimes moving observation; full of striking information...; full of the frustration and tedium and occasional tears of the unequal struggle of any of us flawed thespians with ourselves and a great role; and full of his own astonishing and unforgettable drawings. Images, images. What images!" Simon Callow, The Sunday Times (London)