Reviews for Irish Californians: Historic, Benevolent, Romantic

The average rating for Irish Californians: Historic, Benevolent, Romantic based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-05-08 00:00:00 Barbara Nostrand This was a required text for my Critical Sexualities class. Though it was an excellent class, I don't think this book was the greatest way to approach intersections of race, ethnicity, and sexuality -- which is why my professor supplemented almost every chapter with reading from outside sources. There are times when Nagel will spend a whole chapter talking about race in relation to sex and use African-Americans for every single example, using the black race to define our entire understanding of race and sex. The sections of the book concerning sex work were also problematic, victimizing all sex workers in a way that I found very troubling. Overall, the book was helpful in understanding some basic terms and concepts needed to discuss the racialized sexuality, sexual transgressions, etc., but there were some obvious limitations in the way these issues were approached. Many of the students in my class study Gender and/or Critical Sexualities as majors/minors, so despite the helpful definitions of concepts early on in the book (and a couple of really good chapters), most of us were quite critical of this book. I think this book might be more effective for a 101 course, though.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-10-04 00:00:00 Rich Sucik As indicated by the stars, I really liked this book. I don't think I taught it particularly well, but I'll do better next time. The idea of "ethnosexual frontiers" - that sexuality and ethnicity (broadly defined by Nagel) work to define each other, create boundaries, and define/exclude the Other - is a useful one for doing intersectional analysis. I used it for my sexuality course but I think it could be really good for a race course as well.