Guy Hocquenghem
Encyclopedia
Guy Hocquenghem was a French writer and queer theorist
.
in Sceaux
and the Ecole Normale Supérieure
in Paris. At the age of fifteen he began an affair with his high school philosophy teacher, René Scherer. They remained lifelong friends. His participation in the May 1968 student rebellion in France formed his allegiance to the Communist Party
, which later expelled him because of his homosexuality.
Hocquenghem taught philosophy at the University of Vincennes-Saint Denis, Paris and wrote numerous novels and works of theory. He was the staff writer for the French publication Libération
. Hocquenghem was the first gay man to be a member of the Front Homosexuel d'Action Révolutionnaire
(FHAR), originally formed by lesbian
separatists who split from the Mouvement Homophile de France in 1971. With filmmaker Lionel Soukaz (b. 1953), Hocquenghem wrote and produced a documentary film
about gay history, Race d'Ep! (1979) the last word of the title being a play on the word pédé, a French slur for gay men.
Though Hocquenghem had a significant impact on leftist thinking in France, his reputation has failed to grow to international prominence. Only the first of his theoretical tracts, Homosexual Desire (1972) and his first novel, L'Amour en relief (1982) have been translated into English. Although Race d'Ep! was shown at Roxie Cinema
in San Francisco in April 1980 and released in America as The Homosexual Century, like Hocquenghem, the film is virtually unknown.
. Drawing on the theories of desiring-production
developed by Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari
in their Capitalism and Schizophrenia
project (1972-1980), Hocquenghem critiqued the influential models of the psyche and sexual desire derived from Lacan
and Freud
. The author also addressed the relation of capitalism
to sexualities, the dynamics of desire, and the political effects of gay group-identities. Moreover, he repudiated the prospect of a new gay 'social organisation' of politics, along with the injunction to sacrifice oneself in the name of future generations.
Jeffrey Weeks
's 1978 preface to the first English language
translation of Homosexual Desire situates the essay in relation to the various, mostly French, theories of subjectivity and desire surrounding and influencing Hocquenghem's thought. It was republished in French in 2000.
L'Après-Mai des faunes (1974) is the second and untranslated queer-theoretical text.
Co-ire, album systématique de l'enfance (Co-anger: systematic album of childhood) (1976) examines childhood sexuality from a Marxist perspective, co-written with professor René Schérer. It is rumored that Schérer and Hocquenghem had an affair in 1959, when the latter was 15.
Fin de section (1976) short story collection
La Dérive homosexuelle (1977) is the third and yet to be translated queer-theoretical text.
La Beauté du métis (1979) analyzed French anti-Arab feeling and homophobia.
L'Amour en relief (1982) is Hocquenghem's first and most famous novel. A blind Tunisian boy explores French society and discovers the ways in which pleasure can form a resistance to totalitarianism. The novel gives context to homosexual desire as a resistance to white supremacy
and racism
.
La Colère de l'agneau (The Wrath of the Lamb) (1985) is an experiment in millenarian and apocoliptic narrative taking St. John the Evangelist as its subject.
L'Âme atomique (The Atomic Heart) (1986) was written partly as a response to his deteriorating health, and again in collaboration with Schérer, this work espouses a philosophy composed of dandyism, gnosticism
, and epicureanism
.
Open letter to those who moved from Mao collars to Rotary
wheels, Marseilles, Agone (1986) was republished in 2003 with a foreword by Serge Halimi
ISBN 2-7489-0005-7
Eve (1987) is a narrative which combines the story of Genesis with the description of the changes in the body from AIDS
-related symptoms and written as Hocquenghem's own body deteriorated.
Voyages et aventures extraordinaires du Frère Angelo (1988) explores the mind of an Italian monk accompanying the conquistadors to the New World.
, 1996)
Queer theory
Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself...
.
Biography
Guy Hocquenghem was born in the suburbs of Paris and was educated at the Lycée LakanalLycée Lakanal
Lycée Lakanal is a secondary public school in Sceaux, France. It was named after Joseph Lakanal, a French politician, and an original member of the Institut de France. The school also offers a middle school and highly ranked "classes préparatoires" undergraduate training...
in Sceaux
Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine
Sceaux is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Wealth:Sceaux is famous for the Château of Sceaux, set in its large park , designed by André Le Nôtre, measuring...
and the Ecole Normale Supérieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
in Paris. At the age of fifteen he began an affair with his high school philosophy teacher, René Scherer. They remained lifelong friends. His participation in the May 1968 student rebellion in France formed his allegiance to the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
, which later expelled him because of his homosexuality.
Hocquenghem taught philosophy at the University of Vincennes-Saint Denis, Paris and wrote numerous novels and works of theory. He was the staff writer for the French publication Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
. Hocquenghem was the first gay man to be a member of the Front Homosexuel d'Action Révolutionnaire
Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire
The front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire was a loose Parisian movement founded in 1971, resulting from a rapprochement between lesbian feminists and gay activists. If the movement could be considered to have leaders, they were Guy Hocquenghem and Françoise d'Eaubonne, while other members...
(FHAR), originally formed by lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
separatists who split from the Mouvement Homophile de France in 1971. With filmmaker Lionel Soukaz (b. 1953), Hocquenghem wrote and produced a documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about gay history, Race d'Ep! (1979) the last word of the title being a play on the word pédé, a French slur for gay men.
Though Hocquenghem had a significant impact on leftist thinking in France, his reputation has failed to grow to international prominence. Only the first of his theoretical tracts, Homosexual Desire (1972) and his first novel, L'Amour en relief (1982) have been translated into English. Although Race d'Ep! was shown at Roxie Cinema
The Roxie
The Roxie Theater is a movie theater at 3117 16th Street in the Mission District of San Francisco built in 1909. It is also known as the Roxie Cinema or just The Roxie.-History:...
in San Francisco in April 1980 and released in America as The Homosexual Century, like Hocquenghem, the film is virtually unknown.
Career
Guy Hocquenghem's Homosexual Desire (1972, English translation 1978) may be the first work of Queer TheoryQueer theory
Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself...
. Drawing on the theories of desiring-production
Desiring-production
Desiring-production is a term coined by the French thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their book Anti-Œdipus . They oppose the Freudian conception of the unconscious as a representational "theater", instead favoring a productive "factory" model: desire is not an imaginary force based on...
developed by Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
and Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
in their Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a two-volume theoretical work by the French authors Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Its volumes, published eight years apart, are Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus ....
project (1972-1980), Hocquenghem critiqued the influential models of the psyche and sexual desire derived from Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
and Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
. The author also addressed the relation of capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
to sexualities, the dynamics of desire, and the political effects of gay group-identities. Moreover, he repudiated the prospect of a new gay 'social organisation' of politics, along with the injunction to sacrifice oneself in the name of future generations.
Jeffrey Weeks
Jeffrey Weeks (sociologist)
Jeffrey Weeks is a historian and sociologist specialising in work on sexuality, and is also a gay activist.-Career:...
's 1978 preface to the first English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation of Homosexual Desire situates the essay in relation to the various, mostly French, theories of subjectivity and desire surrounding and influencing Hocquenghem's thought. It was republished in French in 2000.
L'Après-Mai des faunes (1974) is the second and untranslated queer-theoretical text.
Co-ire, album systématique de l'enfance (Co-anger: systematic album of childhood) (1976) examines childhood sexuality from a Marxist perspective, co-written with professor René Schérer. It is rumored that Schérer and Hocquenghem had an affair in 1959, when the latter was 15.
Fin de section (1976) short story collection
La Dérive homosexuelle (1977) is the third and yet to be translated queer-theoretical text.
La Beauté du métis (1979) analyzed French anti-Arab feeling and homophobia.
L'Amour en relief (1982) is Hocquenghem's first and most famous novel. A blind Tunisian boy explores French society and discovers the ways in which pleasure can form a resistance to totalitarianism. The novel gives context to homosexual desire as a resistance to white supremacy
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
.
La Colère de l'agneau (The Wrath of the Lamb) (1985) is an experiment in millenarian and apocoliptic narrative taking St. John the Evangelist as its subject.
L'Âme atomique (The Atomic Heart) (1986) was written partly as a response to his deteriorating health, and again in collaboration with Schérer, this work espouses a philosophy composed of dandyism, gnosticism
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
, and epicureanism
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...
.
Open letter to those who moved from Mao collars to Rotary
Rotary International
Rotary International is an organization of service clubs known as Rotary Clubs located all over the world. The stated purpose of the organization is to bring together business and professional leaders to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help...
wheels, Marseilles, Agone (1986) was republished in 2003 with a foreword by Serge Halimi
Serge Halimi
Serge Halimi is a journalist with the Le Monde diplomatique since 1992. In March 2008 he became the editorial director. He is also the author of Le Grand Bond en Arrière.-Biography:...
ISBN 2-7489-0005-7
Eve (1987) is a narrative which combines the story of Genesis with the description of the changes in the body from AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
-related symptoms and written as Hocquenghem's own body deteriorated.
Voyages et aventures extraordinaires du Frère Angelo (1988) explores the mind of an Italian monk accompanying the conquistadors to the New World.
Works
- Homosexual Desire (1972, English translation 1978)
- L'Après-Mai des faunes (1974)
- Co-ire, album systématique de l'enfance (Co-anger: systematic album of childhood, with René Schérer) (1976)
- Fin de section (1976) short stories
- La Dérive homosexuelle (1977)
- La Beauté du métis (1979)
- Gay Travels: guide and glance homosexual over the large metropolises (1980)
- L'Amour en relief (1982)
- La Colère d'agneau (The Wrath of the Lamb) (1985)
- L'Âme atomique (The Atomic Heart, with René Schérer) (1986)
- Open letter to those who moved from Mao Collars to Rotary Wheels (1986)
- Eve (1987)
- The amphitheatre of the dead ones: anticipated memories (1994)
Works on Hocquenghem
Bill Marshall, Guy Hocquenghem: Gay Beyond Identity (Duke University PressDuke University Press
Duke University Press is an academic publisher of books and journals, and a unit of Duke University. It publishes approximately 120 books annually and more than 40 journals, as well as offering five electronic collections...
, 1996)