Not in This Family

Gays and the Meaning of Kinship in Postwar North America

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies, Gay Studies
Cover of the book Not in This Family by Heather Murray, University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Heather Murray ISBN: 9780812207408
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc. Publication: February 10, 2012
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press Language: English
Author: Heather Murray
ISBN: 9780812207408
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication: February 10, 2012
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press
Language: English

Many Americans hold fast to the notion that gay men and women, more often than not, have been ostracized from disapproving families. Not in This Family challenges this myth and shows how kinship ties were an animating force in gay culture, politics, and consciousness throughout the latter half of the twentieth century.

Historian Heather Murray gives voice to gays and their parents through an extensive use of introspective writings, particularly personal correspondence and diaries, as well as through published memoirs, fiction, poetry, song lyrics, movies, and visual and print media. Starting in the late 1940s and 1950s, Not in This Family covers the entire postwar period, including the gay liberation and lesbian feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the establishment of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. Ending her story with an examination of contemporary coming-out rituals, Murray shows how the personal that was once private became political and, finally, public.

In exploring the intimate, reciprocal relationship of gay children and their parents, Not in This Family also chronicles larger cultural shifts in privacy, discretion and public revelation, and the very purpose of family relations. Murray shows that private bedrooms and consumer culture, social movements and psychological fashions, all had a part to play in transforming the modern family.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Many Americans hold fast to the notion that gay men and women, more often than not, have been ostracized from disapproving families. Not in This Family challenges this myth and shows how kinship ties were an animating force in gay culture, politics, and consciousness throughout the latter half of the twentieth century.

Historian Heather Murray gives voice to gays and their parents through an extensive use of introspective writings, particularly personal correspondence and diaries, as well as through published memoirs, fiction, poetry, song lyrics, movies, and visual and print media. Starting in the late 1940s and 1950s, Not in This Family covers the entire postwar period, including the gay liberation and lesbian feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the establishment of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. Ending her story with an examination of contemporary coming-out rituals, Murray shows how the personal that was once private became political and, finally, public.

In exploring the intimate, reciprocal relationship of gay children and their parents, Not in This Family also chronicles larger cultural shifts in privacy, discretion and public revelation, and the very purpose of family relations. Murray shows that private bedrooms and consumer culture, social movements and psychological fashions, all had a part to play in transforming the modern family.

More books from University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.

Cover of the book Evening News by Heather Murray
Cover of the book People Must Live by Work by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Shades of Difference by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Election 2014 by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Representation by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Next Year in Marienbad by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Spaces in Translation by Heather Murray
Cover of the book The Late Byzantine Army by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Rude Awakening by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Envisioning an English Empire by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Louisiana by Heather Murray
Cover of the book American Georgics by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Preparing Today's Students for Tomorrow's Jobs in Metropolitan America by Heather Murray
Cover of the book The London Bombings by Heather Murray
Cover of the book Becoming Bureaucrats by Heather Murray
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy