Homosexual
Desire (Series Q) by Guy Hocquenghem, Jeffrey Weeks
(Designer), Michael Moon (Designer)
Originally published in 1972 in France, Guy
Hocquenghem's Homosexual Desire has become a classic in gay
theory. Integrating psychoanalytic and Marxist theory, this
book describes the social and psychic dynamics of what has come to
be called homophobia.
Significant as one of the earliest productions
of the international gay liberation movement, Hocquenghem's work
influenced by the extraordinary energies unleashed by the
political upheavals of both the Paris "May Days" of 1968
and the gay and lesbian political rebellions that occurred in
cities around the world in the wake of New York's Stonewall riots
of June 1969. Drawing on the theoretical work of Gilles
Deleuze and Félix Guattari and on the shattering effects of
innumerable gay "comings- out," Hocquenghem critiqued
the influential models of the psyche and sexual desire derived
from Lacan and Freud. The author also addressed the relation
of capitalism to sexualities, the dynamics of anal desire, and the
political effects of gay group-identities.
"Homosexual Desire represents the
best of left social theory of sexual politics, a tradition that
has never had an adequate reception in the United States.
Reprinting this book now is a step toward recovering that
tradition, and could therefore open debates about the significance
of sexuality." -- Michael Warner
"Written over two decades ago, in the
aftermath of May '68 and Stonewall, Hocquenghem's Homosexual
Desire may well be the first example of what we now call queer
theory. But its significance is more than historical:
it remains an indispensable analysis of, and polemic against,
institutionalized homophobia." -- Douglas Crimp
About the Author
Guy Hocquenghem (1944 - 1988) taught philosophy
at the University of Vincennes, Paris, He was the author of
numerous novels and works of theory, and was a staff writer for
the French publication Libération. He was a founding
member of the Front Homosexuel d'Action Révolutionnaire (FHAR).
Hocquenghem died of an AIDS-related illness in 1988.
Guy
Hocquenghem : Beyond Gay Identity by
Guy Marshall
Although Homosexual Desire, first
published in French in 1972 and in English in 1978, has become a
classic in gay male theory, no full-length study of its author,
Guy Hocquenghem, has been available in English until now. From the
rise of the international gay liberation movement of the late
1960s to Hocquenghem’s AIDS-related death in 1988, Bill Marshall
discusses the arguments and impact of Hocquenghem’s theoretical
and political work while situating this work in its biographical,
historical, and intellectual contexts
Marshall explores all aspects of Hocquenghem’s
writing—journalistic, theoretical, and fictional—much of this
work still untranslated. His consideration reaches beyond the
aftermath of the events of May 1968 and points toward the ways in
which Hocquenghem’s work might invigorate contemporary debates
on a range of issues in Marxist and queer theory and in gay,
lesbian, and cultural studies. These include the construction of
homosexuality in social discourse, the status of "identity
politics," and the role of the state and civil society in the
determination of each. Demonstrating Hocquenghem’s importance
within the framework of French leftist thought, Marshall links him
to his contemporaries Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari. Tracing his
connections to the intellectual traditions of Benjamin, Diderot,
Fourier, Lucretius, and Gnosticism, he also illustrates
Hocquenghem’s place within the European intellectual tradition.
Guy Hocquenghem brings an important, challenging, and overly
neglected French theorist back to the main stage
“I admire Bill Marshall’s mastery of the
complex politics of the early gay liberation movement in France.
Marshall also has a firm grasp of Hocquenghem’s philosophical
background, but his understanding of his brilliant, slippery
subject does not prevent him from subjecting some of
Hocquenghem’s more extreme positions to a strong if subtle
moral questioning.”—Edmund White
Bill Marshall is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of
Southampton.
