Crossing Borders and Queering Citizenship: Civic Reading Practice in Contemporary American and Canadian Writing (Contemporary American and Canadian Writers)

Summary

Can reading make us better citizens? In Crossing borders and queering citizenship, Feghali crafts a sophisticated theoretical framework to theorise how the act of reading can contribute to the queering of contemporary citizenship in North America. Providing sensitive and convincing readings of work by both popular and niche authors, including Gloria Anzaldua, Dorothy Allison, Gregory Scofield, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Erin Moure, Junot Diaz, and Yann Martel, this book is the first to not only read these authors together, but also to discuss how each powerfully resists the exclusionary work of state-sanctioned citizenship in the U.S. and Canada. This book convincingly draws connections between queer theory, citizenship studies, and border studies and sheds light on how these connections can reframe our understanding of American Studies.