Insult and the Making of the Gay Self

475 Pages·2004·1.12 MB·English

by  Didier Eribon

Insult and the Making of the Gay Self
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Edited by Michèle Aina Barale,
Jonathan Goldberg, Michael Moon,
and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
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Insult
and the Making of the Gay Self
Didier Eribon
translated by Michael Lucey
duke university press durham and london 2004
∫ 2004 duke university press
All rights reserved. Printed in the United
States of America on acid-free paper $
Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan. Typeset in
Quadraat by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library
of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
appear on the last printed page of this book.
duke university press gratefully
acknowledges the support of
the gill foundation, which provided
funds toward the translation and
distribution of this book.
ouvrage publié avec le concours
du ministère français chargé de
la culture—centre national du livre.
this work was published with the
help of the french ministry of
culture—centre national du livre.
English translation ∫ 2004 Duke University Press.
Réflexions sur la question gay by Didier Eribon
∫ Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1999.
For Marie Ymonet

To know how to get free is not so hard;
what is arduous is to know how to be free.
andré gide, The Immoralist

Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xxiii
Abbreviations xxv
Introduction: The Language of the Tribe 1
part 1 A World of Insult 13
1 The Shock of Insult 15
2 The Flight to the City 18
3 Friendship as a Way of Life 24
4 Sexuality and Professions 29
5 Family and ‘‘Melancholy’’ 35
6 The City and Conservative Discourse 41
7 To Tell or Not to Tell 46
8 Heterosexual Interpellation 56
9 The Subjected ‘‘Soul’’ 64
10 Caricature and Collective Insult 70
11 Inversions 79
12 On Sodomy 88
13 Subjectivity and Private Life 97
14 Existence Precedes Essence 107
15 Unrealizable Identity 113
16 Perturbations 124
17 The Individual and the Group 130