Finding Out introduces readers to lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) studies. Unlike most books on LGBT, this textbook combines original material with esteemed journal articles. Chapter introductions, written by the authors, place current research findings in a clear context. Finding Out reviews the history of same-sex relationships and gender variance from ancient Greece to the present yet goes beyond a historical account to provide an in-depth examination of LGBT culture and society. Key Features · Includes chapter introductions that gives students a useful context for each research article Connects chapter topics to one another with Lambda Links, which help facilitate analysis and discussion Directs readers to relevant studies and information with “Find Out More” boxes in each chapter “I am most impressed by this book’s blend of comprehensive scope with approachable, intelligent presentation. It provides material valuable for both students new to the field and those taking more advanced courses without excluding either group on the basis of approach or diction. ... I just love this book!” –Sarah-Hope Parmeter University of California, Santa Cruz “ This text will give me a way to teach LGBT issues as central – that is, NOT as tangents, as add-ons, as side issues, but as a central area of inquiry. ... This text is by far the best thing I have seen, and it is heads and shoulders above any other possibilities...” – Mary Armstrong, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Intended Audience This core text is designed for Introduction to Sexuality Studies as well as other undergraduate courses that include LGBT topics. Anyone interested in the history, culture, and society of LGBT will find this book an informative resource.

An archive of personal trauma that addresses how a culture still toxic to queer people can reshape a body In the summer of 2019, Jonathan Alexander had a minor stroke, what his doctors called an “eye stroke.” A small bit of cholesterol came loose from a vein in his neck and instead of shooting into his brain and causing damage, it lodged itself in a branch artery of his retina, resulting in a permanent blindspot in his right eye. In Stroke Book, Alexander recounts both the immediate aftermath of his health crisis, which marked deeper health concerns, as well as his experiences as a queer person subject to medical intervention. A pressure that the queer ill contend with is feeling at fault for their condition, of having somehow chosen illness as punishment for their queerness, however subconsciously. Queer people often experience psychic and somatic pressures that not only decrease their overall quality of life but can also lead to shorter lifespans. Emerging out of a medical emergency and a need to think and feel that crisis through the author’s sexuality, changing sense of dis/ability, and experience of time, Stroke Book invites readers on a personal journey of facing a health crisis while trying to understand how one’s sexual identity affects and is affected by that crisis. Pieceing and stitching together his experience in a queered diary form, Alexander’s lyrical prose documents his ongoing, unfolding experience in the aftermath of the stroke. Through the fracturing of his text, which almost mirrors his fractured sight post-stroke, the author grapples with his shifted experience of time, weaving in and out, while he tracks the aftermath of what he comes to call his “incident” and meditates on how a history of homophobic encounters can manifest in embodied forms. The book situates itself within a larger queer tradition of writing—first, about the body, then about the body unbecoming, and then, yet further, about the body ongoing, even in the shadow of death. Stroke Book also documents the complexities of critique and imagination while holding open a space for dreaming, pleasure, intimacy, and the unexpected.

A collection of essays by colleagues and pupils of Jonathan Alexander, the eminent Professor of Fine Arts at the New York Institute of Fine Arts who is regarded as a leading expert on the illuminated manuscripts. A bibliography of Alexander's own work is included showing the extent of his output.

From 9/11 to COVID-19, the twenty-first century looks increasingly dystopian—and so do its television shows. Long-form science fiction narratives take one step further the fears of today: liberal democracy in crisis, growing economic precarity, the threat of terrorism, and omnipresent corporate control. At the same time, many of these shows attempt to visualize alternatives, using dystopian extrapolations to spotlight the possibility of building a better world. Programming the Future examines how recent speculative television takes on the contradictions of the neoliberal order. Sherryl Vint and Jonathan Alexander consider a range of popular SF narratives of the last two decades, including Battlestar Galactica, Watchmen, Colony, The Man in the High Castle, The Expanse, and Mr. Robot. They argue that science fiction television foregrounds governance as part of explaining the novel institutions and norms of its imagined futures. In so doing, SF shows allegorize and critique contemporary social, political, and economic developments, helping audiences resist the naturalization of the status quo. Vint and Alexander also draw on queer theory to explore the representation of family structures and their relationship to larger social structures. Recasting both dystopian and utopian narratives, Programming the Future shows how depictions of alternative-world political struggles speak to urgent real-world issues of identity, belonging, and social and political change.

Finding Out, Fourth Edition introduces readers to lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-queer (LGBTQ) studies. By combining accessible introductory and explanatory material with primary texts and artifacts, this text/reader explores the development and growth of LGBTQ identities and the interdisciplinary nature of sexuality studies. Now available in a digital ebook format, the fourth edition has been thoroughly updated to include a new chapter on "Trans Lives and Theories", and new readings. Chapters include more discussions of important and current issues in LGBTQ studies such as the emergence of non-binary identities, and issues of race and class, making Finding Out, Fourth Edition an even more comprehensive introduction to the field.

Who were the medieval illuminators? How were their hand-produced books illustrated and decorated? In this beautiful book Jonathan Alexander presents a survey of manuscript illumination throughout Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century. He discusses the social and historical context of the illuminators' lives, considers their methods of work, and presents a series of case studies to show the range and nature of the visual sources and the ways in which they were adapted, copied, or created anew. Alexander explains that in the early period, Christian monasteries and churches were the main centers for the copying of manuscripts, and so the majority of illuminators were monks working in and for their own monasteries. From the eleventh century, lay scribes and illuminators became increasingly numerous, and by the thirteenth century, professional illuminators dominated the field. During this later period, illuminators were able to travel in search of work and to acquire new ideas, they joined guilds with scribes or with artists in the cities, and their ranks included nuns and secular women. Work was regularly collaborative, and the craft was learned through an apprenticeship system. Alexander carefully analyzes surviving manuscripts and medieval treatises in order to explain the complex and time-consuming technical processes of illumination - its materials, methods, tools, choice of illustration, and execution. From rare surviving contracts, he deduces the preoccupation of patrons with materials and schedules. Illustrating his discussion with examples chosen from religious and secular manuscripts made all over Europe, Alexander recreates the astonishing variety and creativity ofmedieval illumination. His book will be a standard reference for years to come.

Explore the common groundand the important differencesbetween bisexuality and transgenderism! This book, guaranteed to provoke debate and discussion of sexuality and gender, is the first devoted exclusively to the relationship between transgenderism and bisexuality. Combining the work of scholars and activists, professional writers and lay people, Bisexuality and Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others proesents ideas, thoughts, feelings, and insights from a variety of contributors who are committed to understandingand deepening our understanding ofgender and sexuality. You’ll find scholarly essays, narratives, poetry, and a revealing interview with four male-to-female transsexuals, two of whom are married to women who also participate in the discussion. In addition, the book includes insightful chapters by well-known advocates of transgenderism, including Jamison James Green, Coralee Drechsler, and Matthew Kailey. The editors of Bisexuality and Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others make the provocative but crucial claim that the larger queer community looks at B and T lives as mere add-ons to L and G. In this book they focus attention on bisexuality and transgenderismmoving the margins to center stage and exploring how sexuality, gender, desire, and intimacy are constructed and circulate in our society. The book’s inclusion of voices and scholarship from Eastern cultures challenges our understanding of sexuality and gender constructions all the more, giving this collection a global scope. Here is a sample of what Bisexuality and Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others examines: biphobia and transphobia within the United States’ gay and lesbian community the bi/trans and subversive aspects of the works and images of cultural icons Angelina Jolie and Sandra Bernhardt how bisexual and transgendered identities are socially constructed through relationships the false promise of pomosexual playwhy the concepts of postmodern sexuality fail to rewrite the construction of gender why swingers who practice bisexual and transgender behavior are often disdained and marginalized by other GLBT people suicidal thoughts and other mental health concerns of bisexual males and females, as well as transgender people Eastern perspectives on sexual/gender identitieswith revealing chapters on gender identity in Japan and Indonesia

In this provocative book, Jonathan Alexander interweaves personal narrative and cultural analyses to explore what it means to be a creep. Calling this work a critical memoir, he draws on his own experiences growing up gay in the deep south, while also interrogating examples from literature and popular film and media, to approach the figure of the creep with some sympathy. Ranging widely over contemporary culture, especially the ever-creeping presence of nearly ubiquitous surveillance, Alexander confesses his own creepiness while also explaining to us what being creepy can show us in turn about our culture. He also resurrects some famous "creeps" from the past, such as J.R. Ackerley, to explore what makes a creep creepy, and how even the best of us succumb at times to being creeps.

An unvarnished accounting of one man's struggle toward sexual and emotional maturity. In this unconventional memoir, Jonathan Alexander addresses wry and affecting missives to a conflicted younger self. Focusing on three years--1989, 1993, and 1996--Dear Queer Self follows the author through the homophobic heights of the AIDS epidemic, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of Bill Clinton, and the steady advancements in gay rights that followed. With humor and wit afforded by hindsight, Alexander relives his closeted college years, his experiments with his sexuality in graduate school, his first marriage to a woman, and his budding career as a college professor. As he moves from tortured self-denial to hard-won self-acceptance, the author confronts the deeply uncomfortable ways he is implicated in his own story. More than just a coming-out narrative, Dear Queer Self is both an intimate psychological exploration and a cultural examination--a meshing of inner and outer realities and a personal reckoning with how we sometimes torture the truth to make a life. It is also a love letter, an homage to a decade of rapid change, and a playlist of the sounds, sights, and feelings of a difficult, but ultimately transformative, time.

After shaking up writing classrooms at more than 450 colleges and universities, Understanding Rhetoric, the comic-style guide to writing that instructors have told us gets "nothing but positive responses from students," has returned for a second edition! Combining the composition know-how of Liz Losh and Jonathan Alexander with the comic-art credibility of Kevin Cannon (Far Arden, Crater XV) and Zander Cannon (Heck, Kaijumax), Understanding Rhetoric encourages deep engagement with core concepts of writing and rhetoric, as teachers and students alike have told us. With a new chapter on collaboration, unique coverage of writerly identity, and extensive discussions of rhetoric, reading, argument, research, revision, and presenting work to audiences, the one and only composition comic covers what students need to know--and does so with fun and flair. A new "Walk the Talk" feature in each chapter helps students see how to put concepts to use in their own reading and writing. And the detailed instructor's manual will help both novice and experienced instructors plan a course around Understanding Rhetoric.