The Deconstruction of Sex
Published on 5. November 2021
Book
Hardback
120 pages
978-1-4780-1342-6 (ISBN)
Description
In The Deconstruction of Sex, Jean-Luc Nancy and Irving Goh discuss how a deconstructive approach to sex helps us negotiate discourses about sex and foster a better understanding of how sex complicates our everyday existence in the age of #MeToo. Throughout their conversation, Nancy and Goh engage with topics ranging from relation, penetration, and subjection to touch, erotics, and jouissance. They show how despite its entrenchment in social norms and centrality to our being-in-the-world, sex lacks a clearly defined essence. At the same time, they point to the potentiality of literature to inscribe the senses of sex. In so doing, Nancy and Goh prompt us to reconsider our relations with ourselves and others through sex in more sensitive, respectful, and humble ways without bracketing the troubling aspects of sex.
Reviews / Votes
"Happily, no one will leave this book with an understanding of sex. To the contrary, these trenchant and provocative dialogues challenge any construction of sex that relies on a copular verb. As astutely as Irving Goh places sex in a politicophilosophical framework, just as astutely does Jean-Luc Nancy lay out how sex exceeds it. This results in an exemplary enactment of the becoming-word of sex, 'leaving in us,' to quote Nancy, 'a sort of dizziness and bedazzlement' by comparison with which 'understanding' sex can only seem delusional." - Lee Edelman, author of (No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive) "In this fascinating dialogue between the renowned continental thinker Jean-Luc Nancy and the critic Irving Goh, the foundational terms of sex are brilliantly deconstructed in ways directly relevant to sensual experience, modalities of affect, intimate co-relationality and the fluid subjects of contemporary gender self-identification. Sexual philosophy, post-Foucault and post-Irigaray, gains a new classic with this indispensable text, topped by the bonus of Claire Colebrook's trenchant afterword on killjoy sex." - Emily Apter, Silver Professor of French and Comparative Literature, New York UniversityMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
292 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4780-1342-6 (9781478013426)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Jean-Luc Nancy | Irving Goh
The Deconstruction of Sex
E-Book
09/2021
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€168.99
Available for download
Persons
Jean-Luc Nancy (1940-2021) was Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Strasbourg and the author of numerous books, most recently Sexistence.
Irving Goh is President's Assistant Professor of Literature at the National University of Singapore and author of The Reject: Community, Politics, and Religion after the Subject and L'Existence PrEpositionnelle.
Claire Colebrook is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University.
Irving Goh is President's Assistant Professor of Literature at the National University of Singapore and author of The Reject: Community, Politics, and Religion after the Subject and L'Existence PrEpositionnelle.
Claire Colebrook is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University.
Content
Introduction: Sex "Is" Deconstruction / Irving Goh 1
0. The Deconstruction of Sex: Opening Questions 16
1. Troubling Thought(s): Sex and Deconstruction 20
2. On Touching-Sex 35
3. Who Comes before/after Sex? 53
4. S/exscription 70
Afterword: Sex and the Killjoy / Claire Colebrook 83
Acknowledgments 93
Notes 95
Bibliography 105
Index 109
0. The Deconstruction of Sex: Opening Questions 16
1. Troubling Thought(s): Sex and Deconstruction 20
2. On Touching-Sex 35
3. Who Comes before/after Sex? 53
4. S/exscription 70
Afterword: Sex and the Killjoy / Claire Colebrook 83
Acknowledgments 93
Notes 95
Bibliography 105
Index 109