Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Paperback | Pages: 258 pages Rating: 4.13 | 1932 Users | 62 Reviews
Define Epithetical Books Epistemology of the Closet
| Title | : | Epistemology of the Closet |
| Author | : | Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 258 pages |
| Published | : | October 16th 1990 by University of California Press (first published 1990) |
| Categories | : | GLBT. Queer. Philosophy. Theory. Nonfiction. LGBT |
Narrative In Pursuance Of Books Epistemology of the Closet
'Epistemology of the Closet' is an exciting book. It looks into the very physiognomy of 'closet,' and assays the work of some great authors such as Proust, Joyce, Lawrence, and Wilde. Even when one is familiar with these writers, it is fascinating to study their works with the perspective of 'Closet.'
'Closet' is not something that happens naturally. In countless personal gay narratives, one often hears, 'Oh I thought I were the only one,' 'this is only happening to me.' These are genuinely felt and lived experiences. It requires much effort to learn that this happens because everything is so profoundly heterosexual. So anything that lies outside the rigid normative binary is 'closeted.' What seems unique, abnormal, strange to queer people is not innocent; it is strategically constituted.
In the book, the author explores the 'closet' by examining the homo/ heterosexual binaries, how one is constructed to reinforce the other. The more distinct these binaries are, the easier it is to assign people different identity markers. Prior to the end of 19th century, men were men, but since then, they have been transformed into homo and Heterosexual men, whereas no such distinction existed before. According to Eva Kosofsky, the construction of 'homosexual man' has been a presiding term of the 20th century, one that has the same, primary importance for all modern Western identity and social organization as do the more traditionally visible cruxes of gender, class, and race. This new binary has affected western culture profoundly. Binaries such as secrecy/disclosure, knowledge/ignorance, health/illness, art/kitsch, discipline/terrorism, come to mirror homo-hetero binary.
As I read this book, I also thought that it was also in the modern/industrial phase when agrarian societies were losing their grip, and the progress in modern science was making it possible for Europe to imagine the world differently. As Europe became more advanced and progressed, we saw the mushrooming of cities and industrial units, the rise of democracy, decolonization and so forth. The changed world, at least in the west, recognized other identities, which were hidden for a long time. Also, modern cities, by their very nature, do not control human 'desire' in the way agrarian societies do. Therefore, even today, the developed world is far more evolved when it comes to the rights of minority sexualities, whereas the pre-industrial societies, the term 'closet' hardly makes any sense because the homosexual man has not yet arrived there.
As I was reading the book, I was thinking about Marx. No matter how much one is tempted to denounce Marx; it is amazing to see how well his theories of base and super-structures are in explaining the world. On the one hand, the episteme of the 'closet,' gives the impression that humanity is evolving linearly. However, the more one reads, reflects, and looks at the discourse producing machinery; one sees how easy it is to produce new knowledge systems, new ways of being in the world. Any sense of righteousness and ethics does not necessarily motivate these 'changes' that look so humane; they are as much embedded in pragmaticism.
Coming back to the book, I must add that the chapters on Proust and Wilde can still be enjoyed, even if one has not read them. On my second reading of these chapters, I tried to read them as if I knew nothing about their works; they are still accessible. The book, of course, demands patience. The content in it is, after all, the work of a lifetime.
Particularize Books As Epistemology of the Closet
| Original Title: | Epistemology of the Closet |
| ISBN: | 0520078748 (ISBN13: 9780520078741) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | James Russell Lowell Prize Nominee (1990) |
Rating Epithetical Books Epistemology of the Closet
Ratings: 4.13 From 1932 Users | 62 ReviewsWrite Up Epithetical Books Epistemology of the Closet
What an amazing book! I've been working through it for a while for my theory reading group and finally, I finished it! Sedgwick is very clever and original. Some of the chapters were less clear because of the way she refers to texts I have not read. I wonder if I will be as impressed/convinced after reading the original text. While many in our reading group sympathized with Sedgwick's reading of "Billy Budd" as "gay," it seemed that a lot of people also had second thoughts on her reading.Seminal work in Gender and Sexuality Studies, but it's also a very difficult read. I think I understood two thirds of it. The whole work is written with very formal, academic, sophisticated terms. I think Sedgwick coined several words, I couldn't find them in the Oxford, Collins, or Macmillan. Many sentences were longer than ten lines, which made it very hard for me to keep track of the key concept. I'll need to read reviews and commentaries by fellow scholars to understand this work better.
As is often my problem, it is difficult to review a book so seminal (a self-conscious word choice, not ignoring the potential for "germinal" to be used as a synonym) and so fundamental to so many strains of thoughts. With that said, Sedgwick is an absolute master. Among her contemporaries, there are no literary critics more elastic in their thinking and brilliant in their argumentation. Indeed, it is only Leo Bersani who comes close in the exquisiteness of close reading encountered in this text.
Essential to my understanding of contemporary social dynamics.
In this highly acclaimed work, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick proposed a new mode of literary and cultural critique that destabilized a Western structural binary, in this case not a gendered one (e.g the prominent gender discourse of men versus women), but rather a sexual one that began with the rampant spatial and temporal manifestations of the homo/heterosexual. Calling out this definitional framework as an endemic crisis that fractured and damaged the modern conceptualization of this binary, Sedgwick
I have been thinking a lot lately about how variable the gay experience is across America and around the world, and even by individual. I have been recently seeing a guy from Venezuela who is only in the process of coming out. He hasn't come out to his parents, but has come out to his American friends and classmates, as well as some of his close female cousins. He has three brothers, and after coming out to one of them recently, he received the response that while his brother respects him, he
This was an amazing and very readable work. It would get five stars from me if I was more conversant (and hence, engaged/interested/informed) in the literature she analyzes in the second half of the book. Sedwick's claim that the homo/heterosexual destabilization/phobia itself produces and is implicated in various social binaries (Art/Kitsch, knowledge/ignorance Same/Different, Health/illnnes) is a fascinating and thoroughly interesting reading. Even more impressive was here ability to enter
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