"Camp" is often associated with glamour, surfaces and an ostentatious display of chic, but as these authors argue, there is an underside to it that has often gone unnoticed: camp's simultaneous investment in dirt, vulgarity, the discarded and rejected, the abject. This book explores how camp challenges and at the same time celebrates what is arguably the single most important and foundational cultural division, that between the dirty and the clean. In refocusing camp as a phenomenon of the dark underside as much as of the glamorous surface, the collection hopes to offer an important contribution to our understanding of the cultural politics and aesthetics of camp.

About the Author

Ingrid Hotz-Davies is Professor of English Literature and Gender Studies and co-director of the Centre for Gender and Diversity Research at the University of Tubingen, Germany.

Georg Vogt is Lecturer at the Institute for Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Franziska Bergman is Junior Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Trier, Germany.

Reviews

"This collection makes a compelling case for camp's materiality and affinity with the filthy and the queer. Engaging with and moving beyond previous Anglo-American debates (What defines camp taste? Is camp queer?), the contributors offer a more expansive range of examples of camp strategies, economies, and modalities than previously available, and demonstrate the urgency of reparative queer ways of reading and attaching to popular cultural texts." -Nicholas de Villiers, University of North Florida and author of Opacity and the Closet: Queer Tactics in Foucault, Barthes, and Warhol

"This collection of essays gives insight into interlocking complexities of liminality of camp aesthetics and queer politics of bad taste. In the critical and comprehensive discussions, the authors exhibit varied approaches from literary studies to film studies, providing a valuable archive of camp's performative practices and its alliance with abjection. The book is an essential contribution to cultural studies that explores the fascinating and open-ended world of camp sensibility." -Justyna Stepien, Szczecin University, Poland

Book Information
ISBN 9780367886905
Author Ingrid Hotz-Davies
Format Paperback
Page Count 202
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g