“A short and sharp book that combines intellectual density, lyrical integrity and factuality that is almost cruel in its precision. A fascinating and thought-provoking read.” — Maria Stepanova, International Booker Prize shortlisted author of In Memory of Memory “In Alton Melvar M. Dapanas’s In the Name of the Body: Lyric Essays, multiple disciplines—theory, cultural anthropology, autobiography, and lyric essay—dance together elegantly and pointedly, forming a sequential meditation on gender and sexuality, embodied in spare and unsentimental vignettes of memory. Dapanas punctures the painfully retrograde folie a deux of the clueless communities that cling to repressive ideals. That they do so in writing that is intellectually acute and graceful, using formal play, is a cause for celebration.” — David Lazar, author of Occasional Desire: Essays and editor of Essaying the Essay and Truth in Nonfiction |