Sentence:  These essays, in other words, endeavor to read the literary, cultural, and political implications of the <WSD>tropologies</WSD> of sexuality that are put into play once the field of sexuality becomes charged by the widespread availability of a "homosexual" identity, and they explore the determining relation between "homosexuality" and "identity" as both have been constructed in modern Euro-American societies. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A recurring motif or metaphor, a trope; an interplay of tropes.