An examination of the concept of orphandom in gay and lesbian experience, and how it has been instrumental in defining and mobilizing queer subcultures.

What is it like to "feel historical"? In "Foundlings" Christopher Nealon analyzes texts produced by American gay men and lesbians in the first half of the twentieth century--poems by Hart Crane, novels by Willa Cather, gay male physique magazines, and lesbian pulp fiction. Nealon brings these diverse works together by highlighting a coming-of-age narrative he calls "foundling"--a term for queer disaffiliation from and desire for family, nation, and history.
The young runaways in Cather's novels, the way critics conflated Crane's homosexual body with his verse, the suggestive poses and...