<P>Through examination of the functions of language and cross-cultural readings of literature&nbsp;- from African queer reading to postcolonial Shakespeare&nbsp;- Rooney explores the nature of the real, providing:</P>
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<LI>a way out of some of the current deadlocks of feminist theory</LI>
<LI>an anti-essentialist approach to gender in which both male and female readers may address a consciousness of the feminine</LI>
<LI>a platform for postcolonial and postmodernist thinkers to engage in a dialogue around the status of the performative in regard to the other</LI>
<LI>a new theory of poetic realism in both canonical and postcolonial literatures</LI>
<LI>a re-reading of the Enlightenment legacy in terms of postcolonial liberation theory</LI>
<LI>a comparison of contemporary debates on the real across the humanities and the sciences.</LI>
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<P>Exploring current ideas of performativity&nbsp;in literature and language,&nbsp;and negotiating a path between feminist theory's common pitfalls of essentialism and constructivism, Caroline Rooney argues convincingly that&nbsp;by rethinking our understanding of gender we might also equip ourselves to resist&nbsp;racism and totalitarianism more effectively.</P>