Sex and Real Estate

Why We Love Houses

Real estate has become a form of “yuppie pornography.” Hopes of summer romance have given way to hopes of summer homes, and fantasies of Romeo have been replaced by fantasies of remodeling. Even real estate ads are flirtatious in their offers of bedrooms that are sensuous and sinks that are seductive. Thus the house you live in, like the partner you choose, can be everything from your beloved to your dream to a status symbol trophy. Marjorie Garber has fashioned a uniquely fascinating book that is as provocative as it is pleasurable, as erudite as it is entertaining, one sure to make readers consider more closely the rooms in which they live.

“[I]lluminating.... Garber upends, tilts and shakes the house of our cultural imagination.”–Newsday

“[I]nteresting and valid.”–The New York Times
© Beverly Hall

Marjorie Garber is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English and of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, and chair of the Program in Dramatic Arts. She has served as director of the Humanities Center at Harvard, chair of the department of Visual and Environmental Studies, and director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. A member of the Board of Directors of the American Council of Learned Societies and a trustee of the English Institute, she is the former president of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, and a continuing member of its board. She is the author of sixteen books and has edited seven collections of essays on topics from Shakespeare to literary and cultural theory to the arts and intellectual life, including Shakespeare After All, which was acclaimed as one of Newsweek’s ten best nonfiction books of 2004 and received the 2005 Christian Gauss Award from the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

View titles by Marjorie Garber

About

Real estate has become a form of “yuppie pornography.” Hopes of summer romance have given way to hopes of summer homes, and fantasies of Romeo have been replaced by fantasies of remodeling. Even real estate ads are flirtatious in their offers of bedrooms that are sensuous and sinks that are seductive. Thus the house you live in, like the partner you choose, can be everything from your beloved to your dream to a status symbol trophy. Marjorie Garber has fashioned a uniquely fascinating book that is as provocative as it is pleasurable, as erudite as it is entertaining, one sure to make readers consider more closely the rooms in which they live.

“[I]lluminating.... Garber upends, tilts and shakes the house of our cultural imagination.”–Newsday

“[I]nteresting and valid.”–The New York Times

Author

© Beverly Hall

Marjorie Garber is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English and of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, and chair of the Program in Dramatic Arts. She has served as director of the Humanities Center at Harvard, chair of the department of Visual and Environmental Studies, and director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. A member of the Board of Directors of the American Council of Learned Societies and a trustee of the English Institute, she is the former president of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, and a continuing member of its board. She is the author of sixteen books and has edited seven collections of essays on topics from Shakespeare to literary and cultural theory to the arts and intellectual life, including Shakespeare After All, which was acclaimed as one of Newsweek’s ten best nonfiction books of 2004 and received the 2005 Christian Gauss Award from the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

View titles by Marjorie Garber

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