page_title: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
section_title: Ideas and literary criticism
hierarchical_section_title: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick / Ideas and literary criticism
caption_attribution_description: English: Robert Reid-Pharr, Eve Sedgwick, and Samuel R Delany at the CUNY grad center
context_page_description: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory, and critical theory. Sedgwick published several books considered "groundbreaking" in the field of queer theory, including Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, Epistemology of the Closet, and Tendencies. Her critical writings helped create the field of queer studies. Her works reflect an interest in a range of issues, including queer performativity; experimental critical writing; the works of Marcel Proust; non-Lacanian psychoanalysis; artists' books; Buddhism and pedagogy; the affective theories of Silvan Tomkins and Melanie Klein; and material culture, especially textiles and texture.
  Drawing on feminist scholarship and the work of Michel Foucault, Sedgwick analyzed homoerotic subplots in the work of writers like Charles Dickens and Henry James. Sedgwick argued that an understanding of virtually any aspect of modern Western culture would be incomplete if it failed to incorporate a critical analysis of modern homo/heterosexual definition. She coined the terms "homosocial" and "antihomophobic".
context_section_description: Sedgwick's work ranges across a wide variety of media and genres; poetry and artworks are not easily separated from the rest of her texts. Disciplinary interests included literary studies, history, art history, film studies, philosophy, cultural studies, anthropology, women's studies and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) studies. Her theoretical interests have been synoptic, assimilative and eclectic.
caption: (L-R) Samuel R. Delany, Robert Reid-Pharr, and Eve Sedgwick pose for a picture
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