Claude J. Summers

Last updated

Claude J. Summers (born 1944) is an American literary scholar, and the William E. Stirton Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. A native of Galvez, Louisiana, he was the third child of Burg Martin Summers and Theo Coy Causey. He was educated in the public schools of Ascension Parish, graduating from Gonzales High School in 1962. He has long credited two teachers at Gonzales High School—Diana Sevario Welch and Sherry Rushing—for inspiring his interest in academic achievement.

He received his B.A. in 1962 from Louisiana State University, where he majored in English Literature and served as editor of Delta, the undergraduate literary journal. At LSU, he formed a romantic relationship with Ted-Larry Pebworth, with whom he would later collaborate on numerous scholarly articles and books. In 1966, he was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, which enabled him to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago.

At Chicago, he earned his A.M. in 1967 and his Ph.D. in 1970. His doctoral work was supported by a Danforth Fellowship and a University of Chicago Dissertation Fellowship. His dissertation, later published as Christopher Marlowe and the Politics of Power (1974), was directed by David Bevington and Arthur Heiserman. It was one of the first books on Marlowe to focus on homosexuality as a major theme in Marlowe's plays without adopting a condemnatory or moralistic tone.

After receiving his Ph.D. from Chicago in 1970, he accepted an assistant professorship at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, where he taught until his retirement in 2002. He was promoted to associate professor in 1973 and to professor in 1977. He became the William E. Stirton Professor in Humanities in 1989, and was named professor emeritus in 2002.

Ted-Larry Pebworth joined Summers at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in 1971, and together they established the Dearborn campus as a center of Renaissance and seventeenth-century English studies, especially through their biennial Renaissance conferences, which from 1974 until 2000 attracted leading scholars in the field. The series yielded thirteen major collections of essays, most edited by Summers and Pebworth. [1]

In addition to their work together organizing the conference series and editing the collections of essays from them, Summers and Pebworth also collaborated on a number of significant essays on such seventeenth-century figures as John Donne and Henry Vaughan, as well as an edition of the poems of Owen Felltham (1973) and a monograph on Ben Jonson (1979; revised 1999).

Summers's individually authored publications early in his career focused on a wide range of Renaissance and seventeenth-century figures, including Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Robert Herrick, John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and John Milton, among others; but he soon expanded his range of interests to include modern English and American literature, including especially LGBT literature.

A founding member of the Modern Language Association's gay and lesbian caucus, Summers helped lead the gay studies movement to maturity within the academy.

He has published extensively on 17th and 20th century English literature.

Summers's varied work in gay studies includes essays on such figures as W.H. Auden, Gore Vidal, Willa Cather, Mary Renault, Richard Howard, Christopher Marlowe, Richard Barnfield, and William Shakespeare, and on topics relating to Renaissance constructions of homosexuality; books on Christopher Isherwood (1979) and E.M. Forster (1983), a collection of essays on Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment England: Literary Representations in Historical Context (1992), and his study of the fictional representation of male homosexuals by gay men and lesbians, Gay Fictions: Wilde to Stonewall (1992).

Perhaps his most ambitious work is The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage: A Reader's Companion to the Writers and Their Works from Antiquity to the Present (1995; rev. ed., 2002), which provides overviews of the gay and lesbian presence in a variety of literatures and historical periods; in-depth critical essays on gay and lesbian authors in world literature; and coverage of topics and figures important in appreciating the rich and varied gay and lesbian literary traditions.

At the heart of Summers' critical and historical publications—whether on seventeenth-century poetry or on modern gay fiction—is a concern with the intersection of literature and politics, broadly construed. His work evinces a sensitivity to the reciprocal relationship of literature and socio-political issues. That is, he is conscious that literature is influenced by socio-political concerns, and also that it frequently helps shape the political and social issues to which it responds. Summers is always careful not to reduce literature to sociological documents. He places literary works in various sociopolitical contexts, but also helps explicate them as aesthetic creations.

From 2002 until 2015, Summers was general editor of glbtq.com, an online encyclopedia that presented detailed biographies of notable gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer people, as well as essays on lgbt history and culture. In that capacity, he also edited three volumes of entries from glbtq.com, which were published by Cleis Press as The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts, The Queer Encyclopedia of Film and Television, and The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance & Musical Theater.

In 2016, Summers began writing a weekly column for The New Civil Rights Movement blog. Among the topics he has written about have been the jurisprudence of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, essayist Joseph Epstein, and America's openly gay ambassadors.

At the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Summers was honored in a variety of ways. Recognized as a devoted teacher, he received the Distinguished Teaching Award; his scholarship was honored by the Faculty Distinguished Research Award; and he received the Michigan Association of Governing Boards' designation as "A Distinguished Faculty Member."

Summers's other academic honors include the Crompton-Noll Award in Gay Studies; the Distinguished Publication award of the John Donne Society; the recognition of several of his books as "Outstanding Academic Books" by the American Library Association; and the Lambda Literary Award for The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage.

In 2008, he received the Monette-Horwitz Trust Award for his efforts in combating homophobia. [2]

In 2013, Summers and Pebworth, were married on the fiftieth anniversary of their relationship. [3] On March 1, 2021, Pebworth died in New Orleans, where he and Summers had lived since their retirement from the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Selected writings

Related Research Articles

Queer studies Study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity

Queer studies, sexual diversity studies, or LGBT studies is the study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender dysphoria, asexual, queer, questioning, intersex people and cultures.

Homoeroticism Sexual attraction between members of the same sex

Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homosexuality" implies a more permanent state of identity or sexual orientation. It is a much older concept than the 19th-century idea of homosexuality, and is depicted or manifested throughout the history of the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements. According to Oxford English Dictionary, it's "pertaining to or characterized by a tendency for erotic emotions to be centered on a person of the same sex; or pertaining to a homo-erotic person."

Robert V. Young, Jr. is a professor of Renaissance Literature and Literary Criticism in the English Department of North Carolina State University, co-founder and co-editor of the John Donne Journal, and author of multiple books and articles primarily related to the study of literature. He became the editor of the conservative quarterly Modern Age in 2007.

Gay literature Literary genre

Gay literature is a collective term for literature produced by or for the gay community which involves characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying male homosexual behavior.

Gay teen fiction is a subgenre that overlaps with LGBTQ+ literature and young adult literature. This article covers books about gay and bisexual teenage characters who are male.

E. Patrick Johnson is the incoming dean of the Northwestern University School of Communication. He is the Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and Professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University. He currently serves as the Chair of the African-American Studies Department at Northwestern University and is a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Johnson is the Founding Director of the Black Arts Initiative at Northwestern. His scholarly and artistic contributions focus on Performance Studies, African-American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Rictor Norton

Rictor Norton is an American writer on literary and cultural history, particularly queer history. He is based in London, England.

David Bergman is an American writer and English professor at Towson University, in Towson, Maryland part of the University System of Maryland. He was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, grew up in Laurelton, New York, and graduated from Kenyon College (1972) and earned a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University (1978).

Felice Picano American writer, publisher, and critic (born 1944)

Felice Picano is an American writer, publisher, and critic who has encouraged the development of gay literature in the United States. His work is documented in many sources.

David M. Halperin American academic

David M. Halperin is an American theorist in the fields of gender studies, queer theory, critical theory, material culture and visual culture. He is the cofounder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and author of several books including Before Pastoral (1983) and One Hundred Years of Homosexuality (1990).

Gay pulp fiction

Gay pulp fiction, or gay pulps, refers to printed works, primarily fiction, that include references to male homosexuality, specifically male gay sex, and that are cheaply produced, typically in paperback books made of wood pulp paper; lesbian pulp fiction is similar work about women. Michael Bronski, the editor of an anthology of gay pulp writing, notes in his introduction, "Gay pulp is not an exact term, and it is used somewhat loosely to refer to a variety of books that had very different origins and markets". People often use the term to refer to the "classic" gay pulps that were produced before about 1970, but it may also be used to refer to the gay erotica or pornography in paperback book or digest magazine form produced since that date.

glbtq.com was an online encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) culture. Launched in 2003, it was edited by Claude J. Summers, emeritus professor at the University of Michigan–Dearborn, and published by Andrew "Wik" Wikholm. It was warmly received by critics, who praised its columns as well-researched. The encyclopedia closed in 2015; its content is accessible via an online archive.

Gregory Woods is a British poet. He was the Chair in Gay and Lesbian Studies at Nottingham Trent University from 1998 to 2013. He is the author of five books of literary and LGBT studies criticism, and seven poetry collections.

Edward Sagarin, also known by his pen name Donald Webster Cory, was an American professor of sociology and criminology at the City University of New York, and a writer. His book The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach, published in 1951, was considered "one of the most influential works in the history of the gay rights movement," and inspired compassion in others by highlighting the difficulties faced by homosexuals.

Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes Puerto Rican author, scholar, and performer

Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes is a gay Puerto Rican author, scholar, and performer. He is better known as Larry La Fountain. He has received several awards for his creative writing and scholarship as well as for his work with Latino and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students. He currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Arnie Kantrowitz was an American LGBT activist and college professor. He authored two books and contributed articles, essays, poems and short fiction to magazines, newspapers and anthologies.

Constantinos Apostolos Patrides was a Greek–American academic and writer, and "one of the greatest scholars of Renaissance literature of his generation". His books list the name C. A. Patrides; his Christian name "Constantinos" was shortened to the familiar "Dinos" and "Dean" by friends.

Robert McRuer is an American theorist who has contributed to fields in transnational queer and disability studies. McRuer is known as being one of the founding scholars involved in forming the field of queer disability studies, particularly for a theoretical outlook known as crip theory. He is currently professor of English at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

The Cory Book Service was the first independent business devoted exclusively to selling books to a gay audience. Started by Donald Webster Cory, born Edward Sagarin, the service consisted of an LGBT mailing list in 1950s America which sent subscribers queer book recommendations and sometimes deeply discounters offers direct from publishers. At the height of the list, it had around three thousand subscribers. David K Johnson, in his book Buying Gay, said that at the time it might have been the largest LGBT mailing list in the world. Though sometimes referred to as a book club, the service did not have any in-person meetings. Instead, Cory would select books and send the titles to readers to guide reading and learning about the gay community.

References

  1. ↑ Blackley, Brian. "Claude and Ted-Larry's Excellent Adventure." John Donne Journal 15 (1997): 219-33.
  2. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-08-05. Retrieved 2010-05-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ↑ "After 50 years together, same-sex couple says 'I do'". MSNBC .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.