Sexistence

by Jean-Luc Nancy

Overview

“[From] our preeminent living philosopher of being-with. . . . A profound―and profoundly necessary―meditation on sex and being.” —Tim Dean, author of Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking
 
Sex, more than just a part of our experience, troubles our conceptions of existence.
 
Drawing on a fascinating array of sources, ancient and modern, philosophical and literary, Jean-Luc Nancy explores and upholds the form-giving thrust of the drive. Nancy reminds us that we are more comfortable with the drama of prohibitions, ideals, repression, transgression, and destruction, which often hamper thinking about sex and gender, than with the affirmation of an originary trouble at the limits of language that divides being and opens the world.
 
Sexistence develops a new philosophical account of sexuality that resonates with contemporary research on gender and biopolitics. Without attempting to be comprehensive, the book ranges from the ancient world through psychoanalysis to discover the turbulence of the drive at the heart of existence.
 
“Written with clarity, wit, and depth, Sexistence takes up the challenges posed by sex to thinking, speaking, art, and the very definition of the human . . . Nancy [argues] . . . sex is closer to art and language than it is to any finite empirical experience.” —Elissa Marder, Emory University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823294015
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	08/12/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	147
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jean-Luc Nancy (1940-2021) was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg. His wide-ranging thought runs through many books, including The Literary Absolute, Being Singular Plural, The Ground of the Image, Listening, Corpus, The Disavowed Community, and Sexistence.

Steven Miller is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Psychoanalysis and Culture at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. He is author of War After Death: On Violence and Its Limits and translator of books by Catherine Malabou, Étienne Balibar, and Anne Dufourmantelle.

Table of Contents

Preliminaries | 1
A. Fatality? | 1
B. Liberation? | 5
C. Philosophy? | 10
D. Drive? | 17
E. Unsayable? | 21
1. Lifting | 26
2. Transmission | 28
3. Appropriation | 30
4. Fiction | 32
5. Real | 35
6. History | 38
7. Technics and Transcendence | 41
8. Excessive Nature | 45
9. Desire | 50
10. Continuous, Discontinuous | 53
11. Devouring | 57
12. Ass in Air | 61
13. Penetration | 66
14. Too Much, Too Little | 70
15. Sex Singular Plural | 74
16. not a word / I lacked | 79
17. Joy | 84
18. Troubles | 89
19. Love Unto Death | 97
20. Love Unto Life | 101
21. Erotic Novel | 108
Postlude | 119
Superfluous Supplement | 120
Notes | 123

Editorial Reviews

Our preeminent living philosopher of being-with has at last turned his speculative attention to sex—‘neither sexual difference, nor different sexualities, but sex itself.’ If Foucault taught us to mistrust the idea of ‘sex itself,’ Nancy uncovers what we’ve missed in our reluctance to think the ontology of sexistence. A profound—and profoundly necessary—meditation on sex and being.”—Tim Dean, author of Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking

“Written with clarity, wit, and depth, Sexistence takes up the challenges posed by sex to thinking, speaking, art, and the very definition of the human. In a series of pithy and startling formulations, Nancy upends common sense by arguing that because sex is sex to the extent that it is the expression of an excessive imperative that cannot be satisfied, sex is closer to art and language than it is to any finite empirical experience.”—Elissa Marder, Emory University

From the Publisher

Our preeminent living philosopher of being-with has at last turned his speculative attention to sex—‘neither sexual difference, nor different sexualities, but sex itself.’ If Foucault taught us to mistrust the idea of ‘sex itself,’ Nancy uncovers what we’ve missed in our reluctance to think the ontology of sexistence. A profound—and profoundly necessary—meditation on sex and being.

Tim Dean

Written with clarity, wit, and depth, Sexistence takes up the challenges posed by sex to thinking, speaking, art, and the very definition of the human. In a series of pithy and startling formulations, Nancy upends common sense by arguing that because sex is sex to the extent that it is the expression of an excessive imperative that cannot be satisfied, sex is closer to art and language than it is to any finite empirical experience.

Elissa Marder