Reviews

Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity by Marjorie Garber, Elizabeth Castelli, Judith Shapiro, Michael Wilson, Sandy Stone, Gary Kates, Julia Epstein, Randolph Trumbach, Valerie Traub, Kristina Straub, Bonnie B. Spanier, Everett K. Rowson, Peter Stallybrass, Janet E. Halley, Ann Rosalind Jones

ejimenez's review

3.0

Of interest at least as much as a cultural studies piece on the state of gender studies and queerness in popular, legal, and academic culture in the late 80s/early 90s as for the intended content. Much of the content is out of date, and some of the articles are misguided and/or offensive from a contemporary perspective (ie, persistently using pronouns assigned at birth to discuss historical trans* folks). The pieces at the end of the book were the most relevant and readable, especially Sandy Stone's "The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto" and "The Ambiguities of "Lesbian" Viewing Pleasure: The (Dis)articulations Black Widow" by Valerie Traub, both of which are also anthologized elsewhere. Interestingly, the Publisher's Weekly blurb on Amazon highly praises the most objectionable essay in the book - the one I reference above re: pronoun misuse, replicating said pronoun misuse in the blurb.