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Samuel R. Delany jiorier v lews 4er Vi Qw££r Thoughts àf The Politics of the Par aliterary Samuel R. Delany Wesleyan University Press Published by University Press of New England • Hanover and London Wesleyan University Press Published by University Press of New England, Hanover, NH 03755 © 1999 by Samuel R. Delany All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 5 4 3 2 1 CIP data appear at the end of the book For Patrick Merla & Marc Shell The following works in this collection were previously published: "The Rhetoric of S e x / T h e Discourse of Desire" was initially delivered as a lec ture at MIT; it first appeared in print in Heterotopias: The Body Politic, ed. Tobin Siebers, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. "Street Talk/Straight Talk" appeared in Difference, eds. Naomi Shor & Elizabeth Weed, special issue on Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities, guest edited by Teresa de Lauretis, vol. 3, summer 1991, Providence. "On the Unspeakable" first appeared in Everyday Life, eds. George and Chris Tysh, Detroit, 1987; subsequendy it appeared in Avant Pop: Fiction for a Daydream ing Nation, ed. Larry McCaffery, Fiction Collective-2, Boulder, Colorado, 1993. " C o m i n g / O u t " appeared first, in slightly different form, in Boys Like Us, edited by Patrick Merla, New York: Avon Books, 1997. "A Bend in the Road" first appeared in the YaleJournal of Criticism, eds. Esther da Costa et al, vol. 7, no. 1, spring 1994; New Haven. "The 'Gay' Writer/ 'Gay Writing' . . . ?" first appeared in the AWPJournal, 1993. "The Black Leather in Color Interview" first appeared in Black Leather in Color, ed ited by Antoinette, Lidell Jackson, and S. Guy Giumento, no. 3, fall 1994, New York City. continued on page 458 Contents Preface: On Creativity and Academic Writing vii Part One: Some Queer Thoughts 1 T h e Rhetoric o f S e x / T h e Discourse o f Desire 3 2 Street Talk / Straight Talk 41 3 O n the U n s p e a k a b l e 58 4 Coming/Out 67 5 A B e n d in the R o a d 98 6 T h e "Gay" Writer / "Gay Writing" . . . ? 111 7 T h e Black Leather in Color Interview 115 8 T h e T h o m a s L. L o n g Interview 123 Part Two: The Politics of the Paraliterary 9 Neither the First W o r d nor the Last o n D e c o n s t r u c t i o n , Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Semiotics for SF Readers 141 10 T h e Para*doxa Interview: Inside a n d O u t s i d e the C a n o n 186 11 T h e Politics o f Paraliterary Criticism 218 12 Z e l a z n y / V a r l e y / G i b s o n — a n d Quality 271 13 Pornography and Censorship 292 14 T h e M a k i n g o f Hogg 298 15 T h e Phil L e g g i e r e Interview: R e a d i n g The Mad Man 311 16 T h e S e c o n d Science-Fiction Studies Interview: O f Trouble on Triton a n d O t h e r Matters 315 Part Three: Some Writing/Some Writers 17 A n t o n i a Byatt's Possession: A Romance 353 18 Neil G a i m a n , I, II, a n d III 359 19 A Tribute to Judith Merril 373 20 Michael Perkins's Evil Companions 377 21 N o w It's T i m e for Dale Peck 384 22 Othello in B r o o k l y n 388 23 A Prefatory N o t i c e to V i n c e n t Czyz's Adrift in a Vanishing City 396 24 U n d e r th