A Deleuzian Critique of Queer Thought
Overcoming Sexuality

Nir Kedem, Sapir Academic College, Israel

A Deleuzian critical and practical treatment of contemporary queer theory’s problematics and revolutionary potential.

What could queer theory do and become had it not been so entrenched in the notion of sexuality? Holding queer theory to its originary promise to revolutionize our ways of thinking, A Deleuzian Critique of Queer Thought: Overcoming Sexuality offers a forceful encounter between Deleuze’s work and contemporary queer thought that will endow scholars working at the intersection of Deleuze studies and gender, sex, and sexuality studies with critical and practical means to both reevaluate and transform even their most treasured concepts and methods—especially sexuality. Readers will benefit a new pragmatic approach to working with Deleuze in multiple disciplines, a rigorous demonstration of its critical and creative power, and an extensive analysis of the relations between Deleuze and queer thought, which exemplifies that despite—if not owing to—the unassuming role of sexuality in his thought, Deleuze proves to be all the more queer thought’s true ally.    

Key Features and Benefits

• A first of its kind, comprehensive implementation of Deleuze’s philosophy to analyze and overcome the critical deadlocks of contemporary queer thought.   
• Practical, methodological guidelines for working with Deleuze across multiple disciplines.
• A detailed demonstration of how Deleuzian critique is a powerful means to transform and enhance our ways of thinking and acting.
• A thorough, accessible discussion of Deleuze’s key concepts.
• A critical account of past and present dominant trends in gender, sex, and sexuality studies, their limits and potential outlets.
• A metacritical, Deleuzian analysis of the philosophical foundations of queer theory, its evolution, and its power to transform today’s political and cultural discourses.  

Keywords

Gilles Deleuze, Queer Theory, Critique, Constructivism, AIDS, Time, Body, Sexuality, Virality.

Table of Contents

Introduction: We Are No Longer Queer…

• Overcoming Sexuality
• What Is A Deleuzian Critique?
• Nous autre, Queers

Chapter 1: Queer Theory’s Image of Thought

• Mis-introductions
• A Theory to Come
• Critique, Abstructions and Universals

Chapter 2: Philosophically Queer: Constructing a Concept

• Conceptual Personae: The Exemplary Saint
• The Double-Faced Concept
• Thought & Freedom
• What Can a Concept Do?

Chapter 3: Pozitive Bodies of Resistance 

• Relays of Theory and Practice
• The Missing Body
• The Poz: A Joyful Body, without Pleasure or Desire

Conclusion: The Virality to Come, the Virality that Is