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Reviewed by:
  • Queer Theory’s Return to France edited by Oliver Davis and Hector Kollias
  • Cristina Johnston
Queer Theory’s Return to France. Edited by Oliver Davis and Hector Kollias. (Paragraptih, 35.2 (2012)). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. 166 pp.

Common to the perspectives included in this thought-provoking collection is the notion that queer theory’s comparatively slow take-up in France makes little sense in light of the undeniable entwining of Anglo-American queer studies and ‘French Theory’. Alongside engaging considerations of the impact of key pairings on the state of queer in the French context (for instance, Hector Kollias on Sedgwick–Derrida and Butler–Lacan), the volume maps out the many parallel paths on which French queer studies has embarked, encompassing questions comparatively absent from more general texts on/in queer studies. In this vein we have Nina Power’s analysis of ‘queer maternity’, the very possibility of which represents ‘a subversive form from within one of the most normalized, legitimizing positions — that of the mother’ (p. 261). Another trajectory leads to an assertion that, rather than remaining in the shadow of its Anglo-American influences, queer in France also finds contemporary interlocutors within the frameworks of the Hexagon. Adrian Rifkin’s examination of ‘the sexual as a site of reflection’ (p. 197), for example, concludes that ‘the queerness of all our involuntary literariness and self-distance […] inserts us in a litany of names from Verlaine to Dustan, and in which there is no Anglophone theory whatsoever’ (p. 211). It is refreshing and stimulating to see this topic dealt with without the all-too-frequent elision of ‘queer’ and ‘gay male’. Although there are articles that take as their starting point aspects of the lived experience of individual gay male subjects, these are placed in the context of the editors’ Introduction, which posits Butler, Eribon, Bersani, and Wittig as equally weighted influences on queer theory’s ‘return to France’. There is no attempt to depict such individual experiences as anything other than one perspective among many that combine to trace ‘queer theory’s imbricated, non-linear history’ (Kollias and Davis, p. 142). Indeed, the editors seem determined to practise what they preach, allowing for the expression of contradictory viewpoints (compare, for instance, Kollias and Marie Hélène Bourcier on Butler). Similarly refreshing is the desire to transcend queer navel-gazing to examine the dialogue between French queer theory and contemporary ethical thought. For Murray Pratt, this emerges from analysis of intellectual engagement with AIDS as both epidemic and discursive tool, offering an example of ethical considerations of human suffering and political engagement. Claire Boyle’s examination of the complex transatlantic translation of ‘post-queer’ encourages us to consider a move ‘to extend the parameters of queer inquiry […] in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September’ (p. 272). Equally thought-provoking is the concern centring on what queer theory’s status in France tells us about the practice of interdisciplinarity. As Lisa Downing puts it: ‘At the cusp of sexuality studies and contemporary French studies, we may find a space for the practice of cultural interdisciplinarity in its most mobile, transformative and politicized forms’ (p. 230). [End Page 586] By casting new light on the contemporary state of queer studies in France, the editors have also succeeded in reinvigorating perspectives on queer studies in France as adopted within Anglo-American academia.

Cristina Johnston
University of Stirling
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