Is the Rectum a Grave?: and Other Essays » (New Edition)

Leo Bersani is professor emeritus of French at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Homos and coauthor, with Adam Phillips, of Intimacies, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Over the course of a distinguished career, critic Leo Bersani has tackled a range of issues in his writing, and this collection gathers together some of his finest work. Beginning with one of the foundations of queer theory—his famous meditation on how sex leads to a shattering of the self, “Is the Rectum a Grave?”—this volume charts the inspired connections Bersani has made between sexuality, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics.

Over the course of these essays, Bersani grapples with thinkers ranging from Plato to Descartes to Georg Simmel. Foucault and Freud recur as key figures, and although Foucault rejected psychoanalysis, Bersani contends that by considering his ideas alongside Freud’s, one gains a clearer understanding of human identity and how we relate to one another. For Bersani, art represents a crucial guide for conceiving new ways of connecting to the world, and so, in many of these essays, he stresses the importance of aesthetics, analyzing works by Genet, Caravaggio, Proust, Almodóvar, and Godard.

Documenting over two decades in the life of one of the best minds working in the humanities today, Is the Rectum a Grave? and Other Essays is a unique opportunity to explore the fruitful career of a formidable intellect.

Times Higher Education

“This collection of pieces may well be the best starting point to get acquainted with Bersani’s thought, and offers an essential guide to his writing.”

Preface ix

Part 1 The Sexual Subject

1 Is the Rectum a Grave? 3

2 Is There a Gay Art? 31

3 Gay Betrayals 36

4 Sociability and Cruising 45

5 Aggression, Gay Shame, and Almodóvar's Art 63

Part 2 Toward an Aesthetic Subject

6 Against Monogamy 85

7 Sociality and Sexuality 102

8 Can Sex Make Us Happy? 120

9 Fr-oucault and the End of Sex 133

10 Psychoanalysis and the Aesthetic Subject 139

11 The Will to Know 154

Part 3 Two Interviews

12 A Conversation with Leo Bersani Tim Dean Hal Foster Kaja Silverman 171

13 Beyond Redemption: An Interview with Leo Bersani Nicholas Royle 187

Index 203