Werner Vordtriede: Das verlassene Haus

D 2002, 492 S., geb., € 30.63
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Das Tagebuch eines unbeugsamen Gegners der Nazis. Vordtriede verweigerte 1933 die Annahme des Abiturzeugnisses, denn er hätte dabei den Hitlergruß machen müssen, ging zunächst in die Schweiz, dann in die USA ins Exil und wurde zu einem der bedeutendsten Literaturwissenschafler der Nachkriegszeit. Sein Tagebuch verzeichnet seine Gedanken, protokolliert seine Freundschaften und erinnert stark an die Arbeiten Victor Klemperers.

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf: Ich bin meine eigene Frau. Ein Leben. Hg. v. Peter Süß

D 1995, 205 S., Pb, € 8.74
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, 1928 in Berlin geboren, wurde berühmt durch ihr Gründerzeitmuseum, das sie in jahrelanger Kleinarbeit und unter widrigen Umständen zusammentrug, und durch ihre Autobiographie »Ich bin meine eigene Frau«. Sie wurde wiederholt von Neonazis angegriffen und wanderte 1995 nach Schweden aus.

Martha Nussbaum, Juha Sihvola (eds.): The Sleep of Reason

USA 2002, 457 pp., brochure, € 34.69
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Sex is beyond reason, and yet we constantly reason about it. So, too, did the peoples of ancient Greece and Rome. But until recently there has been little discussion of their views on erotic experience and sexual ethics. This book brings together an international group of philosophers, philologists, literary critics, and historians to consider two questions normally kept separate: how is erotic experience understood in classical texts of various kinds, and what ethical judgments and philosophical arguments are made about sex? From same-sex desire to conjugal love, the contributors demonstrate the complexity and diversity of classical Greek and Roman sexuality.

Luc Brisson: Sexual Ambivalence

USA 2002, 196pp., brochure, € 21.79
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
This book collects and translates most of the extant Graeco-Roman writing on human beings, divinities, animals, and other creatures who were both female and male. The author provides a commentary that situates the rich source material within its historical and intellectual contexts. These selections- from mythological, philosophical, historical, and anecdotal sources – describe cases of either simultaneous dual sexuality, as in androgyny and hermaphroditism, or successive dual sexuality, as in the case of Tiresias (the blind Theban prophet), which is found through the whole span of Graeco-Roman antiquity. In addition to including such familiar sources as the myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus as told in Ovid’s »Metamorphoses« and Aristophanes’s myth of the origin of sexes and sexuality in Plato’s »Symposion«, the author also discusses cosmogonic mythology in Hesiodic poetry, the Orphic »Rhapsodies«, Gnosticism, the »Hermetic Corpus«, and the so-called »Chaldean Oracles«.

Amnesty International (Hrsg.): Das Schweigen brechen

D 2001, 159 S., Broschur, € 8.22
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
Verfolgt, misshandelt, gefoltert - Menschenrechtsverletzungen von Lesben, Schwulen und Transgenderpersonen in aller Welt werden in diesem von amnesty international herausgegebenen Buch thematisiert. Zwei junge Männer geben sich beim Verlassen eines Cafés ein flüchtigen Kuss. Kurz darauf werden sie festgenommen und 28 Stunden lang verhört. Sie haben laut Gesetz einen »öffentlichen Skandal« verursacht. Es folgt ein Rausschmiss aus der Schule und einjährige Gefängnisstrafen - passiert ist das tatsächlich in Rumänien (und das in einem Land, das immerhin in die EU aufgenommen werden möchte). In Großbritannien hätte dasselbe »Vergehen« noch 100 Pfund kosten können (ein Land, das sich bereits in der EU befindet). Und in Ländern wie dem Sudan, dem Iran oder Afghanistan kann homosexuelle Betätigung gar die Todesstrafe nach sich ziehen. 50 Länder rügt ai in diesem Buch für Menschenrechtsverletzungen aufgrund von sexueller Orientierung (die zweite Ausgabe musste um zahlreiche hinzugekommene aktuelle Fälle erweitert werden). Breiten Raum nimmt auch die Diskussion um die Anerkennung von Homosexualität als Asylgrund in Deutschland ein (eine Diskussion, von der man hier in Österreich noch meilenweit entfernt ist, die jedoch nicht weniger notwendig ist als anderswo in der EU).

Tim Fountain: Quentin Crisp

UK 2002, 192 pp., brochure, € 17.35
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
Tim Fountain came to know Quentin Crisp durng the last year of his life whilst researching his stage play about him, Resident Alien. Crisp died before he got a chance to see the play. Fountain’s »Outline« tells the story of that year and of the life and lasting legacy of one of the wittiest and most controversial figures of the last century, shedding light on the intriguing events leading up to his death. It is a compelling portrait of what Fountain calls a »great, glittering contradiction«: a man who flaunted his sexuality at a time when the penalty for buggery was a gaol, a man whose very name epitomised style, yet who lived alone in abject poverty in a room he simply refused to clean, and a man who confidently declared at the height of the AIDS epidemic that he didn’t believe it existed.

Shane Phelan: Sexual Strangers

USA 2001, 179 pp., brochure, € 31.76
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Is the U.S. a heterosexual regime? If it is, how may we understand the political position of those who cannot or will not align themselves with hetero sexuality? With these provocative questions, Shane Phelan raises the issue of whether lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people can be seen as citizens at all. Can citizenship be made queer? Or does citizenship require the exclusion of those who are regarded as queer to preserve the »equality« that it promises? The author argues that, in the U.S., queers are strangers – not exactly the enemy, since they are not excluded from all rights of citizenship, but not quite members. Rather, they are ambiguous figures who trouble the border between »us« and »them«, a border just as central to liberal regimes as to other states. Life on this border structures both the exclusion of sexual minorities and their ambivalence about becoming part of the »mainstream«. Phelan looks at citizenship as including not only equal protection and equal rights to such institutions as marriage and military service, but also political and cultural visibility, as inclusion in the national imaginary. She discusses the continuing stigmatization of bisexuals and transgendered people within lesbian and gay communities as a result of the attempt to flee from strangeness – a flight that inevitably produces new strangers.

Craig Rimmerman etc. (eds.): The Politics of Gay Rights

USA 2000, 460 pp., brochure, € 29.87
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Few issues in American politics inspire such passion as civil rights for gays and lesbians. In these original essays, scholars and activists writing from a number of different perspectives provide a comprehensive overview of this heated debate. Contributors thoroughly investigate the politics of the gay and lesbian movement, beginning with its political organizations and tactics. The essays also address the strategies and ideology of conservative opposition groups, such as the Christian Right. They focus on key issues for public policy, including gays' and lesbians' openly serving in the military, antidiscrimination laws, and the ongoing AIDS crisis. The book ends with chapters that discuss the ways in which the political struggle for gay rights has played out in various arenas – in Congress, in the courts, in state and local governments, and in electorial politics.