Insult and the Making of the Gay Self (Series Q) - LGBTQ+ Identity Formation Book for Academic Study & Social Justice Discussions

This book is written with so much intensity and feeling that I couldn't put it down. The translator (kudos to Lucey!)does an amazing job and the writing is of astonishing quality. The entire book is like this, but my favorite begins at part three ("Michel Foucault's Heterotopias")where Eribon begins talking about Michel Foucault as if he were a Proust, Gide, or Barthes. What I mean by this, is that he writes about Foucault as a human being with life situations (as a son, a student, with depressions, alcohol-related issues, and as a friend to Althusser, etc.) It is rare to get this kind of life writing on Foucault since English academics generally treat Foucault as if he were some kind of theory machine, a brain with no body attached. Eribon I think, stops this kind of approach and proposes that we look afresh, with new eyes, at the life of Foucault and how it had an effect on the kinds of theory he produced. Huffer's recent "Mad for Foucault" also delves into these issues from a different angle (but I prefer Eribon/Lucey). Both of these books should be read together and "queer theory" can perhaps get on to a new track. Perhaps I am just being speculative to restate what these books are implying, but it seems that a different perspective emerges from this book in particular. I hope people will buy this book and read it thoroughly because it deserves that and will benefit anyone teaching Foucault in academic settings. The general reader may also gain enormously because it is written without jargon and insider knowledge (queer theory acrobatics.)Eribon's notion of Foucault's place in this history begins with the early work on madness and this is so suggestive! This chapter also appeared in a different form in a GLQ issue, but I prefer reading it in this book along with all of the other insights. The only drawback is the translation of the title as "Insult" Though it is provocative and perhaps aimed at a larger reading audience, I prefer the original French title "Reflexions sur la question gay." That is a tough title to translate. The problem is twofold: in French there is not a term for "queer", which poses an immediate problem for translation. But putting it as "la question gay" implies already a sense of the open-endedness to the identity situation. At any rate, buy "Insult" and read the entire book. You will not regret it!