The Body in French Queer Thought from Wittig to Preciado

Queer Permeability

Elliot Evans

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781032336121
• eBook ISBN: 9780429632433
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Critical Theory

The Body in French Queer Thought from Wittig to Preciado: Queer Permeability identifies a common concern in French queer works for the materiality of the body, arguing for a return to the body as fundamental to queer thought and politics, from HIV onwards.

The emergence of queer theory in France offers an opportunity to re-evaluate the state of queer thought more widely: what matters to queer theory today? The energy of queer thinking in France – grounded in activist groups and galvanised by recent hostility towards same-sex marriage and gay parenting – has reignited queer debates. Examining Paul B. Preciado's experimentation with theory and pharmaceutical testosterone; Monique Wittig's exploration of the body through radically innovative language; and, finally, the surgical performances of French artist ORLAN's 'Art Charnel', this book asks how we are able to account for the material body in philosophy, literature, and visual image.

This is an important work for academics and students in French studies, in Anglophone queer studies, gender and sexuality studies and transgender studies, and will have significant interest for specialists of cultural translation and visual art and culture.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise Page
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Bodies beyond language or reason: The legacy of Descartes’s dualism in poststructuralist accounts of the body
• 2 Queer permeability in Paul B. Preciado’s literature of entanglement: Narrating the posthuman self, performing philosophy
• 3 Writing as a ‘war machine’: Monique Wittig’s textual materialism and bodily metaphor
• 4 The constructed body of ORLAN’s ‘Art Charnel’
• Conclusion: Queer directions: Lessons from the French context
• Index