Queer Communism and the Ministry of Love: Sexual Revolution in British Writing of the 1930s - Paperback

by Glyn Salton-Cox (Author)

A new reading of the sexual politics of 1930s leftist prose genres

It is well known that many of the best-known queer writers of the 1930s were involved with leftist politics. Why, then, has there been no extended examination of this striking juncture of dissident sex and socialism? Queer Communism and the Ministry of Love addresses this question, among others, to transform current narratives of midcentury literary, cultural, and intellectual history from a queer Marxist perspective. It provides a unique exploration of the transnational formation of queer leftist writing in 1930s Britain informed by detailed research on Weimar Berlin, Civil War Spain and the Soviet Union.

Key Features:

• Rearticulates major figures with lesser known authors
• A unique exploration of the transnational formation of queer leftist writing in 1930s Britain informed by detailed research on Weimar Berlin, British, and the Soviet Union
• A queer Marxist critique of anti-fascist fiction and the sexual politics of midcentury Britain
• Redefines our understanding of 1930s literary history, queer theory, and Marxism

Front Jacket

'Salton-Cox makes an exciting contribution to our understanding of the British literary left in the 1930s. Tracing the intricate crossings of queer sexualities, middle-class class identities, and proletarian politics, this study turns a queer eye on leftist writers both canonical and lesser-known, yielding fresh critical insights into this unique period.' Tyrus Miller, University of California-Irvine The first book-length study to provide a detailed examination of a distinctive crossroads in the history of the left Queer Communism reconstructs queer writers' engagements with a series of wide-ranging Marxist aesthetic debates, social forms and political strategies. Through case studies of Christopher Isherwood and Sylvia Townsend Warner, Salton-Cox argues that queer writing of the 1930s was deeply embedded in a network of transnational leftist formations stretching across Weimar Germany, Soviet Russia, Spain and China. Probing the left's mounting heteronormativity in the late 30s and 40s in chapters on Katharine Burdekin and George Orwell, Queer Communism also traces the genesis of post-war sexual politics in Popular Front antifascism. Salton-Cox's study transforms current narratives of mid-century literary, cultural and intellectual history from a queer Marxist perspective. The first book-length study to provide a detailed examination of the distinctive crossroads in the history of the left Glyn Salton-Cox is Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Cover image: (c) Genevieve Stawski Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-2331-1 Barcode

Author Biography

Glyn Salton-Cox is Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Amongst other publications, his work has appeared in Modern Language Quarterly, Critical Quarterly, Comparative Literature, and Twentieth-Century Communism, and is forthcoming in The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the 1930s and The Cambridge History of 1930s British Literature. He is currently working on a monograph on the cultural, literary, and intellectual history of the lumpenproletariat.