Queer cities, suburbs and countrside

Book section : Chapter

This chapter journeys from the queer metropolis to provincial towns and cities, suburbia and the countryside to demonstrate how these various kinds of space have inflected queer lives in distinctive ways in the modern period. It shows how queer historians have increasingly moderated an early metrocentrism and signalled that it was no queer wasteland beyond the city. Focussing on England, the chapter insists on the importance of thinking in local, provincialized perspective, rather than overextending the particular English configurations of space and (homo)sexuality. 

Authors: Cook, M

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Host title: The Oxford Handbook of LGBTQ History
• Series: Oxford Handbooks
• Publication date: 2026-01-01
• Language: English
• Subtype: Chapter