Difference Troubles
Queering Social Theory and Sexual Politics

In this 1997 book, Steven Seidman offers a wide-ranging and sophisticated discussion of social theory and sexual politics.

Steven Seidman (Author)

9780521590433, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 October 1997

322 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.64 kg

Difference Troubles, first published in 1997, examines the implications for social theory and sexual politics of taking difference seriously. It explores the trouble difference makes not only for the social sciences, but also for the people - feminists, queer theorists, postmodernists - who champion difference. Seidman asks how social thinkers should conceptualize differences such as gender, race, and sexuality, without reducing them to an inferior status. This is a wide-ranging and sophisticated discussion of contemporary social theory and sexual politics, presented with Seidman's familiar imagination and clarity. In addition, it argues persuasively for a pragmatic approach to difference troubles in theory and politics.

Introduction: the contemporary reconfiguring of social theory and cultural politics
Part I. Resisting Difference: The Malaise of the Human Sciences: 1. The political unconscious of the human sciences
2. The end of sociological theory
3. Relativizing sociology: the challenge of cultural studies
4. The refusal of sexual difference: queering sociology
5. Difference troubles: the flight of sociology from 'otherness'
Part II. Between Identity and Difference: From Lesbian and Gay to Queer Theory: 6. Identity and politics in a 'postmodern' gay culture
7. Deconstructing queer theory or some difficulties in a theory and politics of difference
Part III. Democratic Prospects: The Politics of Knowledge and Identity: 8. Transfiguring sexual identity: aids and the cultural politics of sexuality and homosexuality
9. From gay ethnicity to queer politics: the renewal of gay radicalism in the United States
10. Postmodern anxiety: the politics of epistemology
11. The politics of sexual difference in late twentieth century America
12. Difference and democracy: group recognition and the political cultures of the United States, Holland, and France
Epilogue: pragmatism, difference and a culture of strong democracy.

Subject Areas: Sociology & anthropology [JH], Gay & Lesbian studies [JFSK], Cultural studies [JFC]