Jay Grossman

Breaking bounds : Whitman and American cultural studies

BLExplores Whitmans homosexuality in relation to his poetry, politics, and life BLIncludes work by Eve Sedgewick, Michael Moon, and Jonathan Arac These new essays reject the persistent tendency in Whitman studies to isolate his sexuality from his politics, and his poetry from both. The issue of his sexuality is instead brought into contact with a wide range of issues, from nationalism to race and gender, pointing to the interdisciplinary future of American literary and cultural study, and the growing influence of gay and lesbian studies.

Queer Lineations: Robert K. Martin and Gay Literary Studies

A t the 2006 Modern Language Association convention in Philadelphia, the Division on Gay Studies in Language and Literature sponsored a session titled “Queer Lineations: Robert K. Martin and Gay Literary Studies” to honor a pioneer in LGBTQ studies. The reason for the session can be put rather simply: where would the field of gay and lesbian studies be, we wondered, if it weren’t for the scholarly inventiveness and political commitment — not to say the simple courage — of Robert K. Martin? Before a multigenerational audience of scholars and students who packed the room, stood along the back wall, and sat on the floor, three distinguished scholars sounded the depths of Martin’s scholarly work in the context of the continued unfolding of LGBTQ studies, then listened as audience members commented on his political bravery — not only staking his academic career on openly acknowledging his own homosexuality but also focusing his scholarship on the irreducible relevance of sexuality and homosexuality for literary studies. I’m grateful that GLQ now provides an even larger audience the opportunity to reacquaint themselves with — or to learn about for the first time — Martin’s contributions to American gay and lesbian literary and cultural studies, as well as to the study of a wide array of British, European, and Canadian artists, writers, and theorists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On the following pages you’ll find revised versions of the three talks presented that afternoon in Philadelphia; the printed pages capture something of the energy that permeated the convention room, as well as the emotions that were suddenly called forth when Martin himself showed up for the session, accompanied by his partner, Yvon Halley. Because of