LGBT Inclusion in American Life

A fascinating and path-breaking account of how pop culture reflected and produced the dramatic sea-change in American attitudes and policy towards LBGTQ+ persons. A rare combination of sophisticated theory and page-turning writing. A book you can assign in class and take to the beach. * Mark A. Graber, author of A New Introduction to American Constitutionalism *
This dazzling volume explains the recent trajectory of LGBT inclusion in American law, politics, and institutions through pop culture. By ‘queering political time,’ Susan Burgess builds a satisfying, nuanced explanation for the successes and failures of LGBT politics. Her work helps us to acknowledge fully the current dangerous resistance to LGBT rights and inclusion, but ultimately issues a compelling—and kind—invitation to imagine and build a just, inclusive, and democratic future. The hopeful book we need now! * Julie Novkov, author of Racial Union: Law, Intimacy, and the White State in Alabama, 1865-1954 *
Burgess brilliantly integrates analysis of popular cultural narratives with traditional theories of progressive social change to explain how LGBT rights and liberties came to be accepted in mainstream politics. The book offers creative, often surprising, and always edifying interpretations of movies, television series, musicals, and other manifestations of pop culture to develop her argument. All in all, Burgess once again demonstrates that she is one of the most astute and provocative contemporary analysts of American political culture. Highly recommended! * Michael McCann, co-author of Union by Law: Filipino American Labor Activists, Rights Radicalism, and Racial Capitalism *
The exchange of influence between pop culture and American politics flows in both directions, and sometimes becomes knotted in complex ways.... The book is a kind of gauntlet thrown down before the author’s colleagues, challenging them to think outside the ballot box. -- Scott McLemee * Inside Higher Ed *
Although Burgess uses ‘pop culture to better understand political transformation’ (p.21), she accomplishes much more. She brings insights from queer theory and critical race studies—notions of nonlinear time and of pop culture as both sources of challenge and tools of status quo reinforcement—to bear on key concepts of American political development, including political time and cyclical patterns of political change. * Perspectives on Politics *
Vast changes in mainstream attitudes, mores, and public opinion, not just concerning LGBTQ rights, were necessary to win sweeping legislative and legal victories... In her thoughtful and insightful book, LGBT Inclusion in American Life, [Susan Burgess] shows how these complex and dynamic changes happened over time through the active 'mutually constitutive' intersection of ideas, politics, and popular culture. * People's World *