-
The Birth of an Identity: A Response to Del McWhorter's Bodies and Pleasures
- Hypatia
- Indiana University Press
- Volume 16, Number 3, Summer 2001
- pp. 106-114
- Article
- Additional Information
First, I engage Del McWhorter's confessional voice in the context of her thought and emphasize her claim that even "objective knowledge" often has an indirectly confessional aspect. Second, I give an account of the value of historicity and genealogy in McWhorter's understanding of knowing and subjectivity. Third, I address her reconfiguration of the subjectivity of desiring by prioritizing pleasure in the project of "becoming truly gay." Finally, I assess the meaning of her phrase, "straying afield from myself."