Homographesis: Essays in Gay Literary and Cultural Theory

by Lee Edelman

Brings provocative, rigorous and controversial readings of literary and cultural texts to gay critical analysis. Lee Edelman rearticulates the politics of sexuality, addressing some of the most hotly debated issues of our time.

Genres: Queer, Theory, Nonfiction, Queer Studies, Essays, Gay

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 1994

About the author

Lee Edelman is a professor and chair of the English Department at Tufts University. Lee Edelman began his academic career as a scholar of twentieth-century American poetry. He has since become a central figure in the development, dissemination, and rethinking of queer theory. His current work explores the intersections of sexuality, rhetorical theory, cultural politics, and film. He holds an appointment as the Fletcher Professor of English Literature and he is currently the Chair of the English Department. He gained international recognition for his books about queer theory, post-structuralism, psychoanalytic theory, and cultural studies.

Leo Bersani wrote of his most recent book, No Future, "In consistently brilliant theoretical discussions (for the most part, psychoanalytically inspired), as well as in strikingly original readings of Dickens, George Eliot, and Hitchcock, Lee Edelman argues that in a political culture dominated by the sentimental illusions and frequently murderous moral imperatives of 'reproductive futurism, ' homosexuality has been assigned—and should deliberately and defiantly take on—the burden of a negativity at once embedded within and violently disavowed by that culture. The paradoxical dignity of queerness would be its refusal to believe in a redemptive future, its embrace of the unintelligibility, even the inhumanity inherent in sexuality. Edelman's extraordinary text is so powerful that we could perhaps reproach him only for not spelling out the mode in which we might survive our necessary assent to his argument."

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

(7/10) My current academic project led me to try and acquaint myself with queer theory and writing about queer ways of reading, which lead me to this 1994 book by Lee Edelman, who I had only previously known as a phrase that came after "Lauren Berlant and". To be honest, there wasn't much here that helped me with my work, but a lot of it was pretty interesting regardless.

In the first essay Edelman coins the ungainly term "homographesis" to describe the way in which gay bodies act as social texts. Rather than being an extensive theoretical project, however, this book is more a collection of scattered cultural notes loosely tied to the figure of the gay man in American culture. Edelman has a Barthesian touch in the way he can tease out the manifold implications of seemingly very straightforward texts, from two-word political slogans to embarrassing photos of the President, and like Barthes he couples his sometimes dense theoretical musings with wry humour.

Be forewarned that this text is very academic and theory-heavy, moving between several different cultural philosophies. Edelman defends his style in the prologue, and I think he's right to do so, but it. A twenty-year-old academic text can often seem obsolete even in the humanities, especially one such as this that deals with at-the-time current events which now seem distant and foggy. While Edelman's theoretical methodology has certainly not been discredited, I have to imagine that a contemporary text would pay more attention to questions of how race and gender identity, among other factors, inform readings of the gay body. Edelman often seems to assume a unified gay male subject, an assumption that continues to plague contemporary queer politics and organizing.

Still, I think Homographesis is worth revisiting for anyone interested in queer theory and how it emerged from the gay politics of the 1980s. If nothing else, read the essay on George H. W. Bush vomiting in Japan, which is the funniest academic work I've read in quite some time.

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although what I understood I liked, but I was not able to understand very much. Even though I am severely interested in the subject the book is not at all for a general readership. I would recommend it to anyone who has quite a thorough knowledge of Lacan, Foucault and Freud for the concepts and of Kant for the writing style.

[Richard K. W. Hsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have read several articles in this collection. Still need time to pick up old memories