An essay I wrote entitled Queering the Domestic and Domesticating the Queer: Utopian Genealogies in Lanford Wilson's "Fifth of July" was recently published in the New England Theatre Journal, 2011 edition, volume 22. Please feel free to contact me via email (darrenblaney@cs.com) if you would like to request a pdf copy of it.
As we are once again in a moment in which veterans (closeted, straight, disabled, and - for the first time in US history - "openly gay" as well) are returning after a long war to a country in a relatively dire economic state, I believe that Lanford Wilson's masterfully crafted play "Fifth of July" is worth revisiting again, as it provides an interesting lens through which to view our current situation.
Queering the Domestic and Domesticating the Queer: Utopian Genealogies in Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July
ABSTRACT:
Examining Lanford Wilson's 1978 play Fifth of July, this article discusses how the playwright responded to post-Vietnam culture wars by implementing utopian models of genealogy, kinship, and inheritance. The essay contextualizes the play in terms of contemporaneous homophobic violence and other challenges to gay civil rights, as well as in terms of recent queer theory and events. Constructing a revisionist historiography that "queered" the US family, Wilson's auspicious vision extended from his ensemble to his audiences.
Thanks for reading, and all the best to you in 2012!
