EVE SEDGWICK'S AXIOMS(FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE CLOSET)
1. People are different from each other (22).
2. The study of sexuality is not coextensive with the study of gender; correspondingly, antihomophobic inquiry is not coextensive with feminist inquiry. But we can't know in advance how they will be different (27).
3. There can't be an a priori decision about how far it will make sense to conceptualize lesbian and gay male identities together. Or separately (36).
4. The immemorial, seemingly ritualized debates on nature versus nurture take place against a very unstable background of tacit assumptions and fantasies about both nature and nurture (40).
5. The historical search for a Great Paradigm Shift may obscure the present conditions of sexual identity (44).
6. The relation of gay studies to debates on the literary canon is, and had best be, tortuous (48).
7. The paths of allo-identification are likely to be strange and recalcitrant. So are the paths of auto-identification (59).
THE CLOSET
1. People are different from each other (22).
2. The study of sexuality is not coextensive with the study of gender; correspondingly, antihomophobic inquiry is not coextensive with feminist inquiry. But we can't know in advance how they will be different (27).
3. There can't be an a priori decision about how far it will make sense to conceptualize lesbian and gay male identities together. Or separately (36).
4. The immemorial, seemingly ritualized debates on nature versus nurture take place against a very unstable background of tacit assumptions and fantasies about both nature and nurture (40).
5. The historical search for a Great Paradigm Shift may obscure the present conditions of sexual identity (44).
6. The relation of gay studies to debates on the literary canon is, and had best be, tortuous (48).
7. The paths of allo-identification are likely to be strange and recalcitrant. So are the paths of auto-identification (59).
THE CLOSET
By Adam Geffen
Eve Sedgwick’s text, “The Epistemology of the Closet”, is very dense so to begin let us first consider the title itself. The word epistemology means “The study of the methods and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity.”Thus broadly speaking the goal of the text is to discuss our methods and grounds for knowledge of the closet and the limits and validity of said knowledge. She begins her text with considering our cultures knowledge of and construction of the closet. Her discussions of the construction of the closet lead her into musing upon the creation of a homosexual identity and then also gender construction of homosexual people.
Sedgwick puts forth the notion that the closet is a fundamental part of the lives of most gay people. Furthermore she states that the closet has had an undeniable effect on Western culture and history. She states that her goal in this text is to expand the boundaries of scrutiny and to introduce new lines of reasoning about the closet. For Sedgwick the closet is “…the defining structure for gay oppression in this century.” She believes that, contrary to recent usage of “coming out of the closet” by other minority groups, the closet is “…quite indelibly marked with the historical specificity of homosocial/homosexual definition….” She argues that the simple fact that for many minorities their stigma is based on visible characteristics like skin color, sex, size, or physical handicap makes the closet uniquely indicative of homophobia. For Sedgwick, the closest type of oppression to gay oppression is that of ethnic/cultural/religious oppression. Yet, for her, this type of oppression does not quite reach the level of gay oppression and she outlines several reasons why using the story of Purim (the Jewish holiday around which the story of Ester is centered), as recounted by Racine, as an analogy for coming out of the closet. Sedgwick sets up the closet as an undeniably important aspect of being gay. She then considers the historical construction of a gay identity that lead to the creation of, or need for, a closet.
For Sedgwick the most import aspect of our understanding of homosexual identity is that it is, at its core, contradictory and incoherent and this understanding is further tied to an incoherent understanding of heterosexual desire and identity. Sedgwick holds that the incoherence is based on the combination of the minoritizing view, which states that there is a “distinct population of persons who really are gay” and the universalizing view, which states “that sexual desire is an unpredictably powerful solvent of stable identities” and thus that heterosexual persons are marked by same sex desires. Further the modern masculine identity requires the scapegoating of same-sex male desire.
Sedgwick finally comes to the notion of gender construction for gay people. In this too she sees two contradictory ideas being combined. The first is one of gender inversion, the notion of “a women’s soul trapped in a man’s body and vice versa”. This ideology allows for the maintenance of an “essential heterosexuality” within the homosexual desire itself. The second idea is that of gender separation. In this view it is most natural for people of the same gender to be grouped together because “people whose economic, institutional, emotional, physical needs and knowledges” are so similar should bond together on sexual desire as well.
She concludes that rather then to try to develop a way of reconciling the incoherences or coming up with new definitions entirely, from here, the most promising course of action is to study the incoherences themselves.
Eve Sedgwick’s text, “The Epistemology of the Closet”, is very dense so to begin let us first consider the title itself. The word epistemology means “The study of the methods and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity.”Thus broadly speaking the goal of the text is to discuss our methods and grounds for knowledge of the closet and the limits and validity of said knowledge. She begins her text with considering our cultures knowledge of and construction of the closet. Her discussions of the construction of the closet lead her into musing upon the creation of a homosexual identity and then also gender construction of homosexual people.
Sedgwick puts forth the notion that the closet is a fundamental part of the lives of most gay people. Furthermore she states that the closet has had an undeniable effect on Western culture and history. She states that her goal in this text is to expand the boundaries of scrutiny and to introduce new lines of reasoning about the closet. For Sedgwick the closet is “…the defining structure for gay oppression in this century.” She believes that, contrary to recent usage of “coming out of the closet” by other minority groups, the closet is “…quite indelibly marked with the historical specificity of homosocial/homosexual definition….” She argues that the simple fact that for many minorities their stigma is based on visible characteristics like skin color, sex, size, or physical handicap makes the closet uniquely indicative of homophobia. For Sedgwick, the closest type of oppression to gay oppression is that of ethnic/cultural/religious oppression. Yet, for her, this type of oppression does not quite reach the level of gay oppression and she outlines several reasons why using the story of Purim (the Jewish holiday around which the story of Ester is centered), as recounted by Racine, as an analogy for coming out of the closet. Sedgwick sets up the closet as an undeniably important aspect of being gay. She then considers the historical construction of a gay identity that lead to the creation of, or need for, a closet.
For Sedgwick the most import aspect of our understanding of homosexual identity is that it is, at its core, contradictory and incoherent and this understanding is further tied to an incoherent understanding of heterosexual desire and identity. Sedgwick holds that the incoherence is based on the combination of the minoritizing view, which states that there is a “distinct population of persons who really are gay” and the universalizing view, which states “that sexual desire is an unpredictably powerful solvent of stable identities” and thus that heterosexual persons are marked by same sex desires. Further the modern masculine identity requires the scapegoating of same-sex male desire.
Sedgwick finally comes to the notion of gender construction for gay people. In this too she sees two contradictory ideas being combined. The first is one of gender inversion, the notion of “a women’s soul trapped in a man’s body and vice versa”. This ideology allows for the maintenance of an “essential heterosexuality” within the homosexual desire itself. The second idea is that of gender separation. In this view it is most natural for people of the same gender to be grouped together because “people whose economic, institutional, emotional, physical needs and knowledges” are so similar should bond together on sexual desire as well.
She concludes that rather then to try to develop a way of reconciling the incoherences or coming up with new definitions entirely, from here, the most promising course of action is to study the incoherences themselves.
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