Intertexts

I N T E R T E X T S 1 7 6 attributed to artifice, to what extent his self-denigration was aform of classi¬ cal false modesty, and how consciously intent Dario was on preserving apan¬ theon of poets so that he could be crowned among its most illustrious mem¬ b e r s . But these are postmodern questions, whereas the value of Derusha and Acereda’s excellent work lies in bringing to life in English the artistry of a spirit far removed from contemporary cynicism. Dario conceived his poetry as agift, and Derusha and Acereda have insured that that gift can now be extended to ageneration of readers in English. This volume deserves to enjoy the wide readership it was designed to serve: undergraduate and grad¬ uate students of Latin American literature and culture, pursuers of the art of translation, scholars of the fin desiecle, and, most especially, lovers of verse. T o d d S . G a r t h United States Naval Academy Spurlin, William, J., ed. Lesbian and Gay Studies and the Teaching of English: Positions, Pedagogies, and Cultural Politics. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2000. xxxiii +326 pp. $37.95 paper. As the subtitle of this collection of sixteen essays suggests, it is divided into threesectionsinwhichcontributorsaddresstheissuesandpracticesaccom¬ panying the teaching of lesbian and gay studies in disciplines and depart¬ ments of English at all levels of instruction, an organization that William J. Spurlin suggests in the Introduction points to the need for integrated analy¬ sis between text and cultural context and for addressing undertheorized same-sex desire that is aposition of diversity from which to speak and write. This collection ofessays seeks to make visible “same-sex desire as asignifi¬ cant axis of pedagogical inquiry” (xvi). Addressing instructors of all sexual orientations, the essays create acritical forum for engaging in informed ways with gay/lesbian writers, with the politics of sexuality in student writing, and with sexual difference as asite of pedagogical inquiry. Because “teaching practices can often mask and serve the interests of dominant powers” (xviii), the collection interrogates the position of sexual identity in the “interarticu¬ lations of power” that impinge on classroom readings, discussions, and writ¬ ings (xx). The first section on “Positions” interrogates the problems associated with finding strategies and alanguage for articulating alesbian, gay, or transgendered position in the classroom. Two personal essays are included in this section. Lee Lynch’s essay poignantly recollects her encountering deficient numbers of gay and lesbian authors in libraries and English curricula. Simi¬ larly, Jay Kent Lorenz’s essay relates his remembrances of adolescent queer¬ ness and how he has transformed that confused and painful past into pro- Review of Lesbian and Gay Studies and the Teaching of English 1 7 7 ductive strategies for empowering his students with the tools of resistant reading and personalized expression. The history of the self, consequendy, informs his teaching as an act of atonement. Two essays in this section address the “coming-out” controversy for instructors. Edward J. Ingebretsen analyzes the ways in which instructors are political and sexualized spectacles, and when instructors’ private subjectivi¬ ties are put under academic and public scrutiny, although paradoxically unspeakable, the effects are stressful and harmful for those teachers and stu¬ dents who are deemed social deviants or “monsters.” Re-imagining Plato’s allegory of the cave analogically to the closet, Ingebresten urges teachers to the classroom as acloset/cave, asite where students can discover pas¬ sages from specular culture with its emphasis on the sexualized gaze. These passages may disrupt students’ seemingly secure moral positions, but they nonetheless help to shape informed positions, moral and political. While Ingebretsen and Lorenz advocate coming out to students, Susan Talburt convincingly advocates that such categorical identification creates fixity that she finds limiting. She defines “lesbian” as arelational process of shifting identifications that open onto multiple textual interpretations, rendering the instructor acontextual self that too is aconstituted positionality, arhetorical strateg>' rather than an embodied presence. This strategy of resisting peda¬ gogical essentialism, Talburt argues, enables her to escape being the “text” that her class interrogates and to promote the discussing of the ideation rela¬ tions...