Timothy Gitzen, "Unscripting the Present" (SUNY Press, 2025)

Timothy Gitzen, "Unscripting the Present" (SUNY Press, 2025)

Author: New Books Network December 9, 2025 Duration: 41:26
Timothy Gitzen's Unscripting the Present (SUNY Press, 2025) interrogates contemporary sex panics in the United States, looking especially at popular culture texts to conceptualize queer youth survival strategies. Sex panics saturate contemporary discourse and politics in the United States. While such panics have a long history, they are now infused with rhetoric, logics, and methods of security that turn queer sexuality into an existential crisis. Queer youth bear the brunt of this crisis, with their presumed innocence always in danger of being lost. Unscripting the Present interweaves analysis of laws and lawsuits, news media, sociological studies, and popular culture both to understand contemporary sex panics and to highlight how queer youth find ways to survive in the here and now. Developing a novel technique of "unscripting," Gitzen focuses our attention on those impromptu moments when things go awry in representations of queer youth-moments that disrupt securitization's social "scripts." Foregoing well-worn promises of things getting better, texts such as Netflix's "Sex Education", the film "Love, Simon", and the multimodal show "Skam" upend the anxious hyperfocus on what's to come in favor of a hopeful present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dive into the complex and ever-evolving world of human intimacy with New Books in Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work. As part of the New Books Network's extensive academic library, this channel offers a space for serious, accessible conversation about the latest scholarship. Each episode features an in-depth interview where authors discuss their recent publications with a knowledgeable host, breaking down intricate research into engaging dialogue. You'll hear about historical perspectives on desire, scientific explorations of attraction, cultural analyses of identity, and the social and political dimensions of sex work. The discussions are nuanced and thoughtful, moving beyond headlines to explore the real questions scholars are asking today. This podcast makes cutting-edge academic work available to anyone curious about the forces that shape our most personal lives. By focusing on newly published books, it ensures listeners are connected to the most current ideas and debates across multiple disciplines, from history and social science to arts and literature. Tune in for a consistently enlightening exploration of the books that are defining how we understand sex and sexuality.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

New Books in Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
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