The Sexual Body : Volume 35, Numbers 1&2, Spring/Summer 2007

The mid-1970s witnessed a turning-point in feminist critiques of the female body, sex, and pornography, igniting a debate which has yet to die down. Through critical essays, fiction, poetry, and images, this provocative issue of "WSQ" probes this dynamic territory in the light of current debates and emerging areas of study. Engaging the fields of film studies, history, literary criticism, performance studies and political theory, "The Sexual Body" energises the debates on the status of sex, pleasure, power, and desire with in-depth explorations of the works of performance artist Sarah Jones, photographer Renee Cox, cyber-pornographer Shu Lea Cheang, and filmmaker Spike Lee. From cultural theories about soul food to an exploration of dance hall music to new discussions of female- and transgender-directed pornography, this issue mobilises cutting-edge feminist, race, and queer theory to push critical theories of the body to their limits and to anticipate where race and sex will inform the next generation of scholarship on this seductive subject.