Margaret Mead Made Me Gay-PB

The wonderful title of this collection refers to the moment when Newton--a college student ashamed of her feelings for other women--read Coming of Age in Samoa and realized that various cultures have differing ideas of what constitutes ""normal"" sexuality. It seems only fitting, then, that Newton (Cherry Grove, Fire Island), now a professor of anthropology at SUNY Purchase, would become a pioneering scholar in lesbian and gay studies. This collection--an intellectual genealogy of Newton's work from the last 30 years--reveals the prescience and durability of her earliest writings. The selections from her influential 1972 study of drag culture, Mother Camp, make effortless statements about gender presentation as ""performance"" and ""impersonation"" that are now staples of contemporary queer theory. In the 1960s, however, she had little professional support from her colleagues (""My topic was widely viewed as an inappropriate dirty joke""). Her newer pieces prove just as stimulating and vital. ""Theater: Gay Anti-Church"" argues that for gay people, theater serves as an almost religious site of community, iconography and ritual. A chapter from her upcoming autobiography, My Butch Career, shares personal revelations and exposes the formation of young butch identity: ""My child body was a strong and capable instrument somehow stuffed into the word `girl.' "" This collection will be deservedly popular among devotees of gay and lesbian studies and anthropology. 23 b&w photos. (Jan. 9)