I was asked to participate in an article for Loyola’s student newspaper on books that shaped me. The full article has some great reads (and some questionable ones, I admit). They didn’t include my full explanations of my choices, so here they are:
Orientalism by Edward Said: This was my introduction to critical theory and to the concept of social construction and has influenced me ever since I read it in college. It gave me a new way of understanding power and our place in the world.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: Probably the book I’ve re-read the most; I never regret entering into Tolkien’s world.
Gay New York by George Chauncey: Another college read, this book introduced me to queer history and helped launch me into my own career.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin: This was actually the Humanities Symposium text from a few years ago. A classic science fiction tale that also helped me better understand the malleability of sex and gender.
The Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick: An essential introduction to the way heterosexist society creates cycles of shame and enforces silence (while also declaring that we don’t need to hear “it”), this foundational work of queer theory is also an interrogation into the queer subtext (and text) of novels I also love (like Billy Budd and In Search of Lost Time).