Editorial
1 Gender Roomours II continues the discussion of the first gender forum issue on gender and space by presenting four articles which investigate the nexus of various (fictional) spaces - comprising a room in Paris, a brothel, the Wyoming mountains, and outer space - and (postmodern) gender identity in 20th-century fiction and film.
2 In "Astronautic Subjects: Postmodern Identity and the Embodiment of Space in American Science Fiction," Stefan Brandt explores how the figure of the astronaut functions in hegemonic and minority discourses as a means of stabilizing gender hierarchies and as a chronotope of boundary transgression and detachment from restrictive gender norms respectively. Drawing on Rosi Braidotti's model of the nomadic subject and Winfried Fluck's concept of expressive individualism, Brandt proposes the "astronautic subject" as a figuration which despite its utilization by hegemonic discourse allows for the production of subversive agency and self-empowerment.
3 Focusing on the development of the novel's protagonist, Luminita Dragulescu's "Into the Room and Out of the Closet: (Homo)Sexuality and Commodification in James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room" traces the linkage of space and (homo)sexual identity in Baldwin's text. In her reading, Dragulescu emphasizes that while Giovanni's room may well be regarded as the place of David's "coming out," it does not serve as a sanctuary for a settled identity, but rather as a threshold introducing a "new" state of equilibrium.
4 Christian Lassen's contribution "'In the dark camp,' Or: Straight with a (Pastoral) Twist. American Western Masculinity in 'Brokeback Mountain'" argues for a critical reconsideration of the alleged "queering of the cowboy" in both the short story and the Hollywood movie. While most critical and public reactions seem to agree on the subversive potential of the story with regard to the Western genre, the article foregrounds how the debate which has accompanied the narrative's reception might profit from reading the story in terms of pastoral elegy.
5 Drawing on Hannah Arendt's concept of agonal and narrative action, Hedwig Wagner's "Places and Spaces: The Public Sphere and Privacy in Lina Wertmüller's Love and Anarchy" shows how the film's representation of public and private spaces challenges the patriarchal and totalitarian separation of these spheres. Wagner's analysis illustrates how Love and Anarchy stages the brothel, a place both public and private, as an alternative public sphere of empowerment.