Queer Italia: Same-Sex Desire in Italian Literature and Film

GARY P. CESTARO is Associate Professor of Italian language and literature at DePaul University in Chicago.

• Introduction Queer Italia: Same-sex Desire in Italian Literature and Film; G.P.Cestaro 'The Dead Sea of Sodomy': Giordano da Pisa on Men Who Have Sex with Men; B.Schlager Bibbiena's Closet: Interpretation and the Sexual Culture of a Renaissance Papal Court; M.Wyatt 'Knots of Desire': Female Homoeroticism in Orlando furioso XXV ; M.M.DeCoste Acting Up in the Renaissance: The Case of Benvenuto Cellini; M.A.Gallucci 'Nature is a Mother Most Sweet': Homosexuality in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth- Century Italian Libertinism; G.Dall'Orto Tra(ns)vestying Gender and Genre in Flaminio Scala's Il (Finto) Marito; R.Kerr Beauty and the Beast: Lesbians in Literature and Sexual Science from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Centuries; D.Danna Desire and Disavowal in Liliana Cavani's 'German Triology'; A.O'Healy Adapting to Heterocentricity: The Film Versions of Umberto Saba's Ernesto and Giorgio Bassini's The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles; W.V.Watson Reluctantly Queer: In Search of the Homoerotic Novel in Twentieth-Century Italian Fiction; S.Parussa Secret Wounds: The Bodies of Facism in Giorgio Bassani's Dietro La Porta ; D.Duncan Transitive Gender and Queer Performance in the Novels of Mario Mieli and Vittorio Pescatori; M.Pustianaz Conclusion

'In conclusion, it is to be hoped that this book will circulate beyond scholars primarily interested in gender studies and Italian history because of its demonstration of just how fruitful queer criticism can be in contested areas of culture.' - Mary P. Wood, European History Quarterly