Following on from a first publication that generated massive wide-spread debates, "Cultural Politics - Queer Reading "is a bold and enduring study on the future of critical theory and the role of gender, ethnic and cultures within academic literary studies. An illuminating new introduction, written for this edition, revisits the book's agenda for a new form of cultural critique and a truly political lesbian and gay studies and Sinfield renews his call for an 'Englit' that incorporates ongoing study of the cultures of ethnicity, gender and sexuality. Challenging the assumptions that have shaped the study of English literature, Sinfield engages provocatively with topics such as: - the gendering of literary culture - the sexual politics of psychoanalysis during the Cold War - the history of cultural materialism and discusses principal figures such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, Holly Hughes, Audre Lorde and Jeanette Winterson. This is a broadly influential investigation of the principles and practice that may form dissident reading, and a compelling argument for intellectual allegiances beyond the academy. " "