This essay is concerned with the relations between gender and queer studies and the general field of theory and history of literature. The first part presents the history of gender and the research into the socio-cultural conditioning of sex identity. The discussion is indebted to Judith Butler's theory of sex performativeness and her reformulation of the (biological) sex / (cultural) gender distinction. The following section surveys the development of queer studies, an extension of gender studies and gay & lesbian studies, which are concerned with postmodern non-normative sexual identities. The final section looks at queer criticism and its potential contribution to literary criticism.
This article is an attempt to show how Polish emancipation gay and lesbian movement evolves and how it affects the queer theory, which is being run within the humanities. The dramatic struggle held to make the Parade of Tolerance in June 2005 legal has stimulated once again a debate over the existence of queer people in Poland. This article also argues that ambiguous state of the movement raises a need of more social attitude to the issue. However, the discourse of antigay, homophobic rhetoric opposes any social initiatives in this matter. The author presents the wide scope of gay publications and argues with the constructivist approach of Jacek Kochanowski. Instead he offers a moderate essential attitude, called oscillating gay identity.
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