A Queer History of Flamenco offers a groundbreaking exploration of flamenco through the lenses of queer theory and cultural studies. Previous histories have provided a largely distorted image about why, where, and how people have done flamenco—as well as who has performed flamenco. Yet feminists, transvestites, butches, femmes, the Spanish Roma, disabled people, guiris, and “incomprehensible” artists have been determined to do things differently without giving up their flamenco status. In this skillful translation of his book Historia queer del flamenco, Fernando López Rodríguez draws on diverse archival materials as well as his own lived experience and artistic practice, unearthing queer flamenco histories, voices, and perspectives that were previously unknown, avoided, or purposely hidden. Tracing flamenco’s development from its birth up to the contemporary era, the book places flamenco within significant historical periods such as the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s dictatorship, the transition to democracy, and the economic crisis of 2008, up to contemporary performances of the late 2010s. In taking a queer approach to History, the author abandons antiquated debates about purities and impurities; anecdotes about the lives of artists that are completely detached from their processes of creation; and myths about geniuses who seem to make art alone and completely detached from their collaborators and the historical, social, economic and artistic moment in which they lived. A Queer History of Flamenco is not only about the present and the queerness of people living, performing, or creating in it, but also about flamenco’s past in which so many queer artists and practices and their lives have remained unearthed and unaddressed.

Over the course of the last century, American fiction writers and poets have used sports figures and sporting events in order to make significant points on themes of identity as they are connected to gender, race, class, and nationality. The contributors to this volume examine American literature that uses sports as a trope to explore or disturb core values of this country. They explore individual works in order to uncover the rich connections between those works' use of sports and issues of importance to American culture from approximately 1920 to the end of the twentieth century. Focusing on four general themes, this volume offers a range of commentary on a variety of American literature. The first section features essays that explain how sports are used by writers to explore or critique American values. The next two sections contain essays that investigate the ways in which writers have used sports to express ideas about race, class, and gender. The final section turns to questions of aesthetics, featuring essays that concentrate on form, technique, and language itself. Together, contributors cover a number of literary works that feature a wide variety of sports, from the expected (baseball) to the more surprising (body building and wilderness adventuring).

Issued also in French under title: Opus, la facture instrumentale au Canada.