Homo Psyche

Can queer theory be <em>erotophobic. This book proceedsfrom the perplexing observation that for all of its politicalagita, rhetorical virtuosity, and intellectual restlessness, queertheory conforms to a model of erotic life that is psychologicallyconservative and narrow. Even after several decades of combative,dazzling, irreverent queer critical thought, the field remains farfrom grasping that sexuality's radical potential lies in its beingunderstood as "exogenous, intersubjective and intrusive"(Laplanche). In particular, and despite the pervasiveness andpopularity of recent calls to deconstruct the ideologicalfoundations of contemporary queer thought, no study has as yetconsidered or in any way investigated the singular role ofpsychology in shaping the field's conceptual impasses andpolitico-ethical limitations. Through close readings of keythinkers in queer theoretical thought-Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, LeoBersani, Lee Edelman, Judith Butler, Lauren Berlant, and JaneGallop-<em>Homo Psyche</em> introduces metapsychology as a newdimension of analysis vis-à-vis the theories of Frenchpsychoanalyst Jean Laplanche, who insisted on "new foundations forpsychoanalysis" that radically departed from existing Freudian andLacanian models of the mind. Staging this intervention, Ashtordeepens current debates about the future of queer studies bydemonstrating how the field's systematic neglect of metapsychologyas a necessary and independent realm of ideology ultimatelyenforces the complicity of queer studies with psychologicalconventions that are fundamentally erotophobic and thereforeinimical to queer theory's radical and ethical project.