On the very edge : bidentities in Michelle Cliff's fiction / Ian Kinane.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kinane, Ian, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cliff, Michelle--Criticism and interpretation.

Cliff, Michelle.

Identity (Psychology) in literature.

Bisexuality in literature.

Biculturalism in literature.

Multiracial people in literature.

Genre:

Literary criticism.

Physical Description:

ix, 152 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2025]

Summary:

"On the Very Edge: Bidentities in Michelle Cliff's Fiction uses the life and work of bisexual, biracial, and bicultural author Michelle Cliff (1946-2016) to develop an entirely new approach to intersectional cultural, race, and gender/sexuality studies that prioritizes "bi-ness" as a methodological tool. The book focuses not "simply" on bisexuality, biracialism, or biculturalism as isolated identity concepts; rather, it explores the very nature of these intersectional identity categories as configured by Cliff. The text, therefore, represents a reclamation of bi identity in Cliff's work as a much broader cultural, and not just sexual or racial, category, arguing that Cliff's spaces and/or stages of "bi-ness" are in themselves significant in understanding contemporary global identity politics, as well as in navigating complex and often damaging identity constructs. Partnered with poet Adrienne Rich and "passing" as white, Michelle Cliff's sexuality and cultural ethnicity were often invisible. Yet her acclaimed work-Abeng, No Telephone to Heaven, Bodies of Water, If I Could Write This in Fire, Free Enterprise, and others-demonstrates the intersections between bisexuality, biracialism, and biculturalism in often profound ways. Drawing on original research, interviews, diaries, editorials, and other correspondences, On the Very Edge will have far-reaching implications in the understanding of complex Caribbean identity politics and intersectional race, gender, and sexuality studies at large"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

"The bifurcated female": an introduction in fragments

"Split into two parts": Michelle Cliff 's double consciousness

"The third division": Michelle Cliff 's killing ambivalence

"A place for in-betweens": Michelle Cliff 's liminality

"Ways into their own bodies": Michelle Cliff 's queer transactions

"Like the bisexuality I clung to": some concluding thoughts.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Kinane, Ian. On the very edge

ISBN:

9781496855145

1496855140

9781496855152

1496855159

OCLC:

1432400803