Keep Reading. On The Sluts by Dennis Cooper: Introduction

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54103/2282-0035/29868

Keywords:

The Sluts, Dennis Cooper

Abstract

This introduction presents a monographic section devoted to Dennis Cooper’s The Sluts (2004), a cult yet understudied novel that engages with key contemporary issues such as desire, violence, mediality, and queer community. Set within an online escort-review forum, The Sluts constructs a fragmented and undecidable narrative in which truth and fiction blur, and desire emerges as a spectral and antisocial force.

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Author Biographies

Giuseppe Carrara, University of Milan

Giuseppe Carrara is Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Milan, where he teaches Comparative Literature, Literary Criticism and Theory, and Intermedia Theory. His publications include Il chierico rosso e l’avanguardia (2018) and Storie a vista. Retorica e poetiche del fototesto (2020). Together with Laura Neri, he co-edited Teoria della letteratura (2022), and with Silvia Cucchi, Erotismo e letteratura (2022).

Marco Malvestio, University of Padua

Marco Malvestio is an assistant professor in literary theory and comparative literature at the University of Padua. He has published the following monographs: The Conflict Revisited: The Second World War in Post-Postmodern Fiction (Peter Lang, 2021), Raccontare la fine del mondo: Fantascienza e Antropocene (nottetempo, 2021), The Ecology of Italian Science Fiction (University of Toronto Press, 2025), and Ruin Ecology. An Exercise in Environmental Imagination (Cambridge University Press, 2025; forthcoming). He co-edited the volumes Italian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (Edinburgh University Press, 2023; with Stefano Serafini), Italian Science Fiction and the Environmental Humanities (Liverpool University Press, 2023; with Emiliano Guaraldo and Daniel A. Finch-Race), and Federico Fellini: Centenary Essays (University of Toronto Press, 2025; with Jessica Whitehead and Alberto Zambenedetti).

References

BERSANI 2010 : L. Bersani, Is the Rectum a Grave? And Other Essays, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2010.

COOPER 2004 : D. Cooper, The Sluts, New York, Carroll & Graff Publisher, 2004.

ENGEL - LYLE 2021 : S.M. Engel – T.S. Lyle, Disrupting Dignity. Rethinking Power and Progress in LGBTQ Lives, New York, New York University Press, 2021.

EUGENI 2015 : R. Eugeni, La condizione postmediale, Milano, Editrice La Scuola, 2015.

FÉREZ MORA 2017 : P.A. Férez Mora, Dennis Cooper’s The Sluts: Prosthetic and Performative (Homo)sexuality, «ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies» 35 (2017), pp. 71-88.

HESTER 2020 : D. Hester, Wrong: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper, Iowa, University of Iowa Press, 2020.

IGLESIAS 2022 : J.G. Iglesias, ‘We’re Just Fantasizing Aloud Here’: Fantasy and Online Communities in Dennis Cooper’s The Sluts (2005), «English Studies» 103, 4 (2022), pp. 609-623.

IGLESIAS 2023 : J.G. Iglesias, “Sluts” and “Slaves”: The Internet and the Evolution of Fantasy in Dennis Cooper’s Online Work, «Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies» 68 (2023), pp. 85-103.

JENKINS 2006 : H. Jenkins, Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide, New York, New York University Press, 2006.

PRECIADO 2021 : P.B. Preciado, Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era, New York, Feminist Press, 2013.

RUSZCZYCKY 2021 : S. Ruszczycky, Vulgar Genres. Gay Pornographic Writing and Contemporary Fiction, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2021.

SONTAG 1975 : S. Sontag, Interpretazioni tendenziose. Dodici temi culturali, Torino, Einaudi, 1975.

Copertina Acme, Annali della Facoltà di Studi Umanistici dell'Università degli Studi di Milano, 1-2/2025

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Published

2025-12-29

How to Cite

Carrara, G., & Malvestio, M. (2025). Keep Reading. On The Sluts by Dennis Cooper: Introduction. ACME, 78(1-2), 381–394. https://doi.org/10.54103/2282-0035/29868

Issue

Vol. 78 No. 1-2 (2025)

Section

"Keep reading": on 'The Sluts' of Dennis Cooper (Giuseppe Carrara and Marco Malvestio)

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Giuseppe Carrara, Marco Malvestio

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

(Estratto del contratto di edizione)

L'autore concede a ACME il diritto di pubblicare per la prima volta o ripubblicare l’opera entro un anno dalla consegna definitiva e quello perpetuo di distribuirla gratuitamente al pubblico su qualsiasi supporto e in qualunque parte del mondo, ivi compresa la comunicazione al pubblico tramite il sito Web della rivista;

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