Sexuality and Gender in Fictions of Espionage: Spying Undercover(s) [Hardcover]

An exploration of how espionage narratives give access to cultural conceptions of gender and sexuality before and following the Second World War, this bookmoves away from masculinist assumptions of the genre to offer an integrative survey of the sexualities on display from important characters across spy fiction. Topics covered include how authors mocked the traditional spy genre; James Bond as a symbol of pervasive British Superiority still anxious about masculinity; how older female spies act as queer figures that disturb the masculine mythology of the secret agent; and how the clandestine lives of agents described ways to encode queer communities under threat from fascism. Covering texts such as the Bond novels, John Le Carr?'s oeuvre (and their notable adaptations) and works by Helen MacInnes, Christopher Isherwood and Mick Herron,Sexuality and Gender in Fictions of Espionagetakes stock of spy fiction written by women, female protagonists written by men, and probes the representations of masculinity generated by male authors.Offering a counterpoint to a genre traditionally viewed as male-centric,Sexuality and Gender in Fictions of Espionageproposes a revision of masculinity, femininity, queer identities and gendered concepts such as domesticity, and relates them to notions of nationality and the defence work conducted at crucial moments in history.Ann Reais Professor of English Literature at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, USA. She is co-editor of the Literary Texts and the Popular Marketplace series with Nick Hubble and she also edited the essay collection,Middlebrow Wodehousein2015.

Introduction

1.Camp Camouflage: The Art of Espionage in Mr. Norris Changes Trains, (Megan Faragher, Wright State University, Ohio, USA)

2.Vanished Ladies: Using Helen MacInnes's Above Suspicion to Look at Women in Spy Fiction, (Kyle Smith, Perth College UHI, Scotland)

3.While Still We Live: Gender, SlC,