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>> Two academics examine E.M. Forster's sexuality When British author E.M. Forster died in 1970, he left behind the manuscript for his novel Maurice. The publishing of the gay love story, complete with Forster's afterword in which he discussed his sexuality, meant the author effectively outed himself posthumously. Reaction among the literati was swift and overwhelmingly negative; Maurice was dismissed as lightweight and inconsequential. In his 1983 landmark article Edward Carpenter and the Double Structure of Maurice, English professor Robert K. Martin, currently chair of the Department of English Studies at the University of Montreal, set out to alter collective assumptions about Forster. Martin convincingly argued that Maurice was--far from fluff--a dense, layered and complex piece of work. He further contended that much of the negative response to Maurice was rooted in a bigoted knee-jerk reaction to Forster's revelation that he was gay. Now Martin has teamed up with George Piggford, an assistant professor of English at Tufts University, to further the analysis of Forster and his sexual orientation. Their anthology of academic musings on the scribe, Queer Forster (University of Chicago Press, $24.50), expands the points of examination to include other Forster works, including A Passage to India and The Longest Journey.
Martin and Piggford also use the book to analyze the ongoing debate over queer studies versus gay studies. Gay studies tends to be "too idealistic," says Martin, while queer studies becomes too broad and loses its specificity when it's a movable category that virtually anyone can fit into (à la Eve Sedgwick). Martin says he and Piggford hoped to reach an intermediate point between the two poles. "All too often queer studies is based on an assumption of pushing gay studies aside." Queer Forster hit bookstands early this month. - Matthew Hays
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Reclaiming Forster
"Forster was unduly neglected," says Martin. "He is popular largely because of the film adaptations of his work and is considered a conservative writer. In fact, he is more complex than that, which is something we wanted to convey with Queer Forster."