ABOUT THIS BOOK

Male Sexuality under Surveillance is a lively, intelligent, and expertly argued analysis of the construction of male sexuality in the business office. Graham Thompson interweaves three main threads: a historicized cultural analysis of the development of the modern business office from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to the present day, a Foucauldian discussion of the office as the site of various disciplinary practices, and a queer-theoretical discussion of the textualization of the gay male body as a device for producing a taxonomy of male-male relations. The combination of these themes produces a study that is fresh, insightful, and provocative.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Graham Thompson teaches in the English Department at De Montfort University in Leicester, U.K., and is the author of The Business of America: The Literary and Critical Production of a Post-War Natio.

REVIEWS

“Thompson offers a sophisticated look at the sexuality of US businessmen on the job. The twist in this study is his application of queer theory—particularly Sedgwick’s work—to the subject. The result is an astonishing series of readings of novels one would not expect to see through this lens.”—Choice

“Male Sexuality under Surveillance is an intelligent, lively, and well-argued analysis of the construction of male sexuality in the business office, and it makes a substantial contribution to scholarship in the field.” —Dennis W. Allen, West Virginia University

“Male Sexuality under Surveillance represents a significant contribution to American literary studies, gender studies, and queer theory.” —Calvin Thomas, author of Male Matters: Masculinity, Anxiety, and the Male Body on the Line

TABLE OF CONTENTS






xi Introduction

    Part One: Managing Desire


 3 1. "Dead letters ... dead men?":
    The Rhetoric of the Office in
    Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener"

22 2. "And that paint is a thing
    that will bear looking into":
    The Business of Sexuality in
    The Rise of Silas Lapham

47 3. "A dream more romantic than
    scarlet pagodas by a silver sea":
    The Businessman and the Fairy
    Child in Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt

    Part Two: Postwar Unsettlement

65 4. "The spirit of work
    weaves a magic wand":
    From Babbittry to Gray Flannel
    via Tropical Incorporation




87 5 "Opaque glass bricks":
      Sloan Wilson's Gray Flannel Man
      in the Queer Organization
      
109 6. "I ascend like a condor,
       while falling to pieces":
       Fear, Paranoia, and Self-Pity in
       Joseph Heller's Something Happened

        Part Three: A Word for Windows

133 7. "My own plein-air
       Arnality bared to the sky":
       Shoelaces, Social Energy, and
       Sexuality in Nicholson Baker's
       The Meanine and The Fermata
165 8. "Frank Lloyd Oop":
      Microse0f, Modern Migration, and
      the Architecture of the 99os

220 Conclusion

227 Notes

233 Bibliography

245 Index

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