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Dissertation Roel van den Oever
15 June 2012
Dominant Mothers, Queer Sons: (Un)doing Momism in Postwar American Culture
In postwar America, sociologists and psychiatrists advanced the idea that an over-affectionate or too-distant mother – or better, Mom – hampers the social and psychosexual development of her son, in extremis causing conditions such as asthma, autism, and schizophrenia. Deemed worst of all was a queer son, since the period witnessed a virulent homophobia as exemplified by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s twin crusades against the Red and the Lavender Scare.
This dissertation offers interpretations of four American fictional texts from the period, each featuring a dominant mother and her queer son. They are the novel The Grotto (Grace Zaring Stone, 1951), the play Suddenly Last Summer (Tennessee Williams, 1958), the film Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), and the novel Portnoy’s Complaint (Philip Roth, 1969). It is argued that these texts at once confirm and contest the (il)logic of Momism and its attendant homophobia.
In addition, the dissertation reflects on certain aspects of the practice of interpretation, in particular oppositional reading, narrative closure, character engagement, and laughter’s meaning-effects. In doing so, it proposes a reading strategy – the reader is active, politically engaged, erotically invested, self-aware, and willing to perform the necessary narratological labor – that enables future critics to undo Momism and homophobia in other texts.
Supervisors: Prof. Maaike Meijer (Maastricht University); Prof. renée hoogland (Wayne State University)
Defense: 15 June 2012
Location: Maastricht University, Minderbroedersberg 4-6
Time: 14.00 hrs
