Reviews for Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

The average rating for Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-08-31 00:00:00 Gina Holub Here are my general thoughts: Introduction/Preface Edwards does a good job of providing a performative and queered autobiographical introduction which immerses readers within the style of Sedgwick but also one of her key ideas of the first person as not only a powerful heuristic tool but as a tool for queering or acting out difference. I love how he justifies the difficulty of her text as being a way of breaking with the standardized methodology within academia and that her use of Yiddish, French et al merely appear as a way to unsurp the standard heterosexual matrix. He however ponderously delineates all of her authorial interests (detailing their birth dates also) to express how intertexual and broad her interests actually are. We should be amazed somehow that she takes interest in modern Hollywood movies and television shows whilst at the same time being a well versed deconstructive literary critic. This is something that Sontag certainly didn't point out in her own work, insisting that such a distinction is pointless and ultimately of no use but to instantiate hierarchical pretensions. He notably over sells his subject such as the following quotation: "Sedgwick is one of the few contemporary literary scholars whose work cannot be ignored" Obviously if such a large percentage of literary scholars can be ignored it calls into question the relevance of the discourse in which he is employing Sedgwick and secondly the subject itself as a useful tool in understanding critical cultural and political ideology. I feel as though quotations like this belong in peppered journalism cut outs as prefaces to books as opposed to providing an analysis of a literary theorist. His argument obviously consists of situating Sedgwick as important because of her intertextual interests and wide spanning critical eye, however the literary theorist should not become important merely because they decide not to focus solely on the concerns of literary theory and because they use a ton of different and differing cultural staples within their work, but because their work is significant. I feel like it undermines theory to be so insistent on the amorphous and difficult to pin down author. "Homos" This section is fantastic especially as a condensed chapter trying to cover distinctly complex and intricated nuances between paradigms but crucially pointing out how many of these ideas didn't die out or lose their momentum but co exist confusingly with our ideas of sexuality today as a competing discourse. It discusses how different conceptualizations of sexuality such as the heterosexuality and homosexuality dyad are anachronistic in the sense that they as terms only emerged fairly recently and thus has a certain contextual significance which brings with it a sense of values and conceptions of sexuality which were not present within classical antiquity or within the nomenclature relating to sexual encounters. It points out how power was a poignant signifier and sexuality was highly stratified by class, for example the "catamite" and receiver assumptions. It is difficult to conceptualize a working class history of sexuality because the available evidence is tainted by the ideological lens of bourgeois literature. He goes on to discuss the inversion model, which not only posits same sex relationships through a heterosexual narrative, in the sense that one must "wear the trousers" and one must therefore act like a man or be effeminate, it also shows the inconsistently in "homo" in ascribing sameness to a vibrant and heterogeneous group of people all wanting different experiences, "essentialist"/ "transitive" et al. Thus the point being, our conceptions and ideas concerning sexuality differ from historical and cultural contexts. Biblical antiquity associated same sex sexuality with bestiality and had overtones of sin, cultural decline and so on. We can see how this narrative has changed but remained intact at the same time co existing alongside the three prevalent models of eroticism, that of the erotic self (we define ourselves in relation to our sexuality), the homo/bi/hetro characterization and the very "discourse" of sexuality itself. This is a complex array of thoughts and thinking, which is conveyed brilliantly. "Homosocial" As a neologism, it perfectly captured the inconsistencies and lack of attention to detail in the experiences of relationships between same sexualities. It was partly a response to second wave feminism and the 'homoculpability' (to coin my own neologism) that men faced in oppressing and using woman for their own ends in a monolithic patriarchal model (it's explained in the book the lineage to anthropological ideas and the suggestion of ritual exchange etc). The importance thus of Sedgwick centered on the critical observation that the erotic depends on an unpredictable ever shifting array of local factors. It is my opinion that the term "patriarchy" thus loses currency when the central premise was crucially restructured to situate homophobia as well as misogyny because it views power in a gendered way and ignores difference between heterosexual men who can enact "homosexual panic" across differing "discriminant maps" and how this affects women and secondly woman themselves. Class is critically important as mentioned before when it comes to sexuality and power; something that even multiple patriarchies seems to be disinterested in. I have to say, the author does not give a convincing account of her interest in lesbianism or women generally and seems frantic in order to create the cognitive mapping necessary to defuse her critics, however even if this were the case (which it isn't) it wouldn't undermine her work elsewhere which was imminent and critically nuanced to undermine the pervading narratives of sexuality at the time. Her concepts are malleable, showcasing diffusion and historical contingency. It is unclear as to why Sedgwick assumed that females retained a more stabilized gender, [Quote being "...Sedgwick believed that to be female was to inhabit a more solid gender position compared to being a man..."] is there a specific cultural impetus which allows for this to happen and what distinctly makes men more fluvial with their gendered identities? It's certainly not a distinction that seems to hold much credence. It's also notable and needs to be mentioned that Sedgwick's observations referring to "centrality of sexual panic" situated within the female homosocitality reeks of a kind of antiquated "hysteria". Her important contribution within a literary context however is in situating the queerness outside the character. It would make more sense for us as readers to critically evaluate scenes, experiences and ideas within the context of: is this a homosexual, heterosexual depiction or simply how are these themes reconfiguring the identity of the scene itself. Literary criticism and analysis thus begins to decenter the subject and disjoin from standard monolithic perceptions of sexuality. We no longer ought to ask if a character is gay by mere ontology, but what explicitly makes one so. "Epistemology of the closet" Here the author introduces the terms "Spectacle of the closet" or "View from the closet" in relation to first person narratives, sharing personal information to the reader, in a sense almost confiding and suturing a trusting relationship sharing epistemological frameworks from the closeted persona. We get a deconstructive analysis of the potential "closet" presents us and the differences each epistemology entails with some people viewing the closet as a coffin, others as a wardrobe etc. We might also come out the closet in different realizations or utterances which are not distinctively queer. Interestingly this has made me consider the closeting characteristics or marginalizing aspects of my own writing. As is mentioned, writing as "I" situates our experiences in the singular "particularity", whereas "one" is a universalizer which has the ability of normalizing and thus over-reaching, generalizing view points which can lead others to become pathological, marginal, minimized due to this implicit assumption. Another dichotomous framework emerges in "phylogenic and ontogenic questions", more neologisms from Sedgwick to describe firstly the historical processes in which identities are formed, not formed, sutured, manipulated and so on, the second relating to questions of why individuals come to process queer sensibilities. This again creates a really interesting bunch of theoretical points in how we view history, giving a new slant on Foucault's genealogical methods and secondly on existence itself both in a literary and realistic sense. Ontogenic questions however become buckled with a variety of right wing dialogs about the free market aetiology of the gay man which suggests his sexuality is merely a "preference" in a sea of potential choices, which is particularly odious. Asking these questions however are not without merit, we gain a variety of subjective experiences and understandings which in-itself rejects the sexualized relativism narrative because we find stories which although personalized have very similar characteristics, settings, loves etc. The idea of identifying silences or textual preterition is really significant and poignant in Sedgwick and has a kind of theoretical relation to deconstructionism, a great example of this deliberate omission from the text is identified in the historical example of not mentioning, not naming homosexuality as a sin not to be spoken of which has obvious social factors such as don't ask don't tell within the military, again all delineated fantastically by the author, with massively quotable sections such as this: "And with this in mind, it is worth remembering that the most useful question may not be, ‘Is X straight, gay or closeted?’ After all, how could that question be answered unequivocally, and how likely is it that the necessary evidence would come to hand? Instead, we could ask ourselves, ‘What might be at stake, emotionally, erotically, ethically, economically cognitively, interpretively, pedagogically, professionally, personally and politically in sensing, imagining, knowing, suggesting or stating that X is queer?" (58) The text becomes a really powerful tool because for Sedgwick, grammatical inversion can be a subtle reference to a sexual inversion. Enjambment takes on erotic implications and apparently sentences which do not conform to the standardized subject-object-verb armature, are the literary equivalent of having anal penetration. Although these are ideas which allow us to examine texts in a more nuanced and abstractual way, they seem wholly subjective and rarely can be explained with reference to countless texts but rather a small sequestrated postmodernist interpretation of a few. The sexualized metaphors and understanding of literature, an example being the short story as a quickie, just seems to have an uncritical Freudian linage and using psychodynamical frameworks perhaps dated. A more critical analysis would be merited. "Queer Taxonomies" We get a delineation of queer here; the insistence that married heterosexuals can have queer characteristics and other really interesting observations. Foucault is inverted and the belief that sexuality has a relational affect on identity is challenged, suggesting a distance. I am not sure I wholly relate to Sedwick's point here as ultimately breaking with Foucault since it could be argued that her marital life in all its irregularities still figures her existence and her ontology in really interesting ways. Another key part of her work becomes apparent, "Nonce Taxonomies" and the author presents this in a really personal way, inviting the reader to consider his/her own taxonomies of understanding. It's really cool but I am not quite sure the critical points i am meant to derive from it, since it's so deceptively simplistic and merely seems to incorporate a lot of truism. It doesn't seem to articulate or provide much nuance to merely state that people find different things attractive, the "when/how/what/who that floats your boat" conjecture just seems really basic and obvious. I am interested in how she rewrites literary texts though like for example her insistence on "critical organic catalyst" being a kind of elongated way of Emily Dickinson saying clitoris. Observations like this really make you reconfigure and rework textual meaning and thus the deontological purpose etc etc. "Queer Performativities" Showing the lineage from Austin/Butler of performative utterances and fluvial gendered identities based on performance, we get a rough sketch of how Sedgwick used the term. It's interesting how her work focused more on the performative act going wrong and how this could be represented as 'queer'. The sections on SM and marriage are really quite interesting and challenges the conventional wisdom/paradigms on the subject. It's certainly not something that I knew Sedgwick was vocal about. The author however does employ the term "jouissance" in a conflationary way and as interchangeable with enjoyment when really its usage should be restricted specifically to the absolute apex of sexuality, the pinnacle, the highest point, the raw energy. There is a sustained critical analysis of a poem Sedgwick wrote, using various metaphoric language inferring performative theory. This blurs the line effectively between the academic and the creative, taking the storytelling sociological methodology of the likes of Bauman and polish theory more generally and pushing it to the end (Kristeva did this as well in a number of her texts as did other feminists like Cixous) This is a point that doesn't really get mentioned as the author focuses closely on the literal implications of the text rather than focusing on what the text means as a wider piece of criticism. "Queer Cusps" The following quotation will provide a base onto which I provide criticism on a more general scale: "Cross-species sexual relations are also potentially queer because they remain illegal in many contexts and because we might have a weaker, different or no preference for the gender of our pets in comparison to our sexual partners." (96) I think there is a real problem in denoting queer against legal frameworks simply because of their potentially forbidden status. It doesn't strike me as particularly a site of activism or helping to understand our sexuality by making such a comment either. Is child molesting queer on the mere insistence that because its forbidden it has queer potential? I think questions like this may lead us down a really slippery path where we inexplicitly defend actions which ought to have no defense. It strikes me as odd that bestiality is thus heralded as a form of transgressive activism due to a lack of gender, it just seems to stretch a theoretical point to a methodological extreme. We can assert the social construction of sexuality/gender et al without the insistence that having sexual relations with your cat might have potentially liberating consequences. I am invited to suture my discomfort here with Sedwick's previous key concept homosexual panic and the experience of homophobia more generally, as though they are inter-related and have paradigmatic cross over. I hope readers of this review realize the implicit assertion within this and that my deconstructive ability is not merely a deconstructive postmodernist piece of garbled shit, However there is certainly something in the implication that i must think of animals and homosexuality on the same wave length which isn't liberating or in good taste. Pandas as a metamorphic, metaphoric tool really is illuminating and a concise way to discuss a whole wealth of interrelating issues. I also think her work on how Fat people have certain affinities with LBGT to be critical and fascinating. This is a palpable case where there is definitive instantiated examples to draw upon like the tv show "The Biggest Loser", incorporating shame and achievement at the potential of maintaining an acceptable body image within its title alone, which suggests there is a glass closet and contemptible dialog that permeates around the issue of Fat. Later on we get a moving consideration on the relevance of queer theory and the current political climate within the UK. I think he is almost too optimistic here as his insistence that LBGTI groups have fictionalized reality in the most mainstream of soaps and dramas is not an end in itself. As others have delineated exhaustively representation is not simply enough because what often happens is a reversion to stereotypes and to create an archetype to identify against. It isn't progressive to have gay characters in a soup or drama merely because you have gay characters in your soap or drama. I understand that the book cannot possibly go into all the nuances and problems that are prevalent here, it shouldn't be merely asserted as an assumption or something that is a positive. Everything else is totally true, why is gay marriage illegal in the UK and this sutures beautifully with Sedwick's observations on marriage more generally earlier in her "marrying" people in text etc. "Affects" This section is the most important mainly because it has a number of critical and key elements within Sedgwick: "Reparative reading" "Hermentutic of suspicion" "Depressive position" (Derived from Klein) "Ressentiment" (Derived from Nietzsche) Silvan Tomkins's eight affects: shame, interest, joy, anger, fear, distress, disgust and contempt or dis-smell. (As differentiated from psychoanalytic drives and how they relate to the tripartite conceptulization of "drive system, affect system and cognitive system" in Sedgwick) It's critically important because instead of a cynicism or a deconstructive ethos which seeks to merely find faults with a text or rewrite them within a paranoid idiom, we should express where texts have surprised us, made us happy, sad et al. Thus to incorporate a reparative reading is to inaugurate a humanitarian understanding of a text. "Autobiographies" Its critical to point out of course that within her oeuvre the use of "I" has differing significances. It's also a differing style of academic writing to wholly incorporate the personal and it's something that I myself have found very influential as a writer and academic, I need to write from the experience I had with the text and secondly the opinions I formulate cannot be wholly expressed from a distance without the appropriate autobiographical context onto which you can assess my opinions appropriately. Her use of different pronoun personas gives light to the flexibility and malleable nature of a text itself and gives an even greater justification for reparative readings in which we don't merely see the disintegration or bias in a text but its beauty or shock etc. Overall, the book is a brilliant introduction to the works of Sedgwick and to queer theory in general, it encourages you as a reader to identify with the abstractual points on a personal level and asks questions, breaking the fourth wall between the reader of an academic primer and a reader, between non fiction and fiction and so on. In this review I hopefully conveyed not only my reservations and problems as I read the text but also the points where i was overwhelmed and heartened by the humanity and passion that the book conveys.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-06-26 00:00:00 Deborah Godby I haven't read any Sedgwick myself yet so I don't feel like I have much to compare it to, but I thought this primer was great! Can't go wrong really.