5 Deconstructing queer theory or the under-theorization of the social and the ethical Steven Seidman From at least the early 1950s through the mid-1970s, the idea *s widespread in American society that what was called homosexu i!.-, was a phenomenon with a uniform essential meaning across histof:«-Both mainstream America and the homosexual mainstream assurrAj that homosexuality marks out a common human identity. Public disp-.k has centered on the moral significance of this presumed natural !.;„: Whereas the post-World War II scientific, medical, and legal eM.-.---lishment routinely figured homosexuality as signaling a psychologu iL; abnormal, morally inferior, and socially deviant human type, homophil; groups and their supporters defended the "normality" of "the hoirc-sexual." Even the mainstream lesbian and gay movements of the ľ'"'* primarily contested stereotypes of homosexuality, not the notion ::i.: "the homosexual" is a distinct human type. Public struggles easily fckul into friend-versus-foe of the homosexual. Since the late 1970s, the terms of the struggle over "homosexual^" have changed dramatically. The assumption that "homosexuality'" i-> * uniform, identical condition has given way to the notion that the mca"ini of same-sex sexual desire varies considerably within and across sock1'.» (e.g., by class, race, ethnicity, or subcultural identity). By the l..i? 1980s, it had become conventional wisdom among many intellectual* ■'• least that the meaning and therefore the experience of same-sex ss\& '--ity articulates a social and historical, not a natural and universal, hl,~--' One consequence of the "constructionist" questioning of "essen'ii;-ism" has been the loss of innocence within the gay community. "Iíi- Deconstructing queer theory tion of a lesbian and gay community unified by a common """" of experience and interest has been placed into seemingly ' "V nent doubt. The struggle over homosexuality has been grudgingly :r!'. wlediicd to be a struggle among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer ■ *',-jQais" and groups who hold to different, sometimes conflicting, '""• l interests, values, and political agendas. A new cynicism has crept \\ lesbian and gay intellectual culture. Representations of homosex-' ,...v produced within these subcultures evoke similar suspicions with .V.'.rd to their disciplining role and their regulatory power effects as r'.^esentations issuing from a heterosexist cultural mainstream. No '■ I oursc or representation of homosexuality, no matter how sincerely it "p ■ iks in the name of liberation, can escape the suspicion that it exhibits ...ocular social interests and entails definite political effects. All images "•■ homosexuality have, to use Foucault's term, power/knowledge effects t. .'c perceived as productive of social hierarchies. The simple polarity l „--A-ceri friend and foe of homosexuality has given way to a multivocal m'ural clash that is so disconcerting to some intellectuals that they have r.-i'.ated into the presumed certainties of a naturalistic ontology, e.g., :iu -;ay brain. I -vrite in 1993 with a sense of the end of an era. The sex and race ,V\ tes exposed deep and bitter divisions among lesbians and gay men; AIDS nas threatened the very desires by which many of us have defined ,.:-,.! organized ourselves into a community with the spectre of disease .::.: death; a relentless politic of coming out, being out, and outing, has i.siK-d to deliver on its promise of liberation from fear and prejudice; the ,:i ľ'A ing crisis of lesbian-feminism and the dubious gains of the gay main--ii»\im surrendering to a single-interest group politic of assimilationism -iLi-zest the exhaustion of the dominant templates of lesbian and gay i'.-li'.ics. Solidarity built around the assumption of a common identity and u\ nda has given way to social division; multiple voices, often speaking :.:*>' one another, have replaced a defiant monotone which drowned out cVm nant voices in favor of an illusory but exalted unity. 11 we arc witnessing the passing of an era, it is, in no small part, ■■.x.luse of the discrediting of the idea of a unitary, common sexual ■Jtfiity. The troubling of identity was instigated initially in the sex ip.i! race debates. Sex rebels protesting the consolidation of a gay and I-"» *■ in-fcminist sexual ethic, and the resounding public voices of people •'] color contesting the writing of the lesbian and gay subject as a white, rc.% as a culture and politics. It might seem odd to think of mostly aca-.jir.-!-theorists as shaping a movement of cultural change. Yet their plac 'm-1 in prestigious universities, their growing prominence in gay intell^!;.,; culture, and their influence in the radical politics of Queer Natici ..ni HIV/AIDS activism suggests that they have become an imp >!-■■:• force shaping lesbian and gay culture and politics. Indicative o ■.-!-social influence is their critical reception from old-guard hum uki intellectual elites. For example, Jeff Escoffier (1990) registers cc-.ki.ir about the depoliticization of gay intellectuals as they are convert i: deconstruction. Similarly, in a brief review of the 1991 lesbian an ; j. studies conference, Simon Watney (1992) criticizes queer thee r ■■■' marginalizing AIDS politics in favor of the high ground of tli»,i:,,.1 In Lingua franca, Daniel Harris (1991) attacks deconstructin" ■■* trivializing AIDS politics by single-mindedly focusing on media err .«. i-r These criticisms evidence a cultural clash among elites who rep ■ •>„■.! divergent intellectual and political standpoints. Such cultural collw •* should not be discounted as mere ideological obfuscation. Cn"i:f. elites produce representations and discourses which shape ima.\* ť self and community, social norms, and political strategies. Alth-'iij1, news reporters, novelists, artists, and film makers may have aa-- '•■ . more people, academic intellectuals influence these media and cihü: : elite directly and exert a broad public influence through teaching a1.-- . writing. Just as an earlier generation of liberationist theorists shaped e*ť- \ cultural and political life, today it is a new movement, a generation "" j queer theorists, who are shaping lesbian and gay intellectual culture | To grasp the social and political significance of queer theory, 1 wish i-1 : situate it historically. I sketch the historical contours of the developmt-rr j Deconstructing queer theory 119 gnd gay intellectual culture from the early 1970s to the present. ':'" ten is intended to be merely suggestive. This is followed by a •'■* \erjzation of the basic ideas of queer theory and its social and ■! "** , meaning. Finally, I expose its own silences while appreciating '"".'-""ortant connection to a politics of knowledge. I, Situating post-Stonewall gay intellectual culture •v phase of lesbian and gay intellectual culture spanned roughly the '. ■* hetween 1968 and 1975. In 1968, there was only the beginnings of ""■' \ community and that only in a few major urban areas. A lesbian '.."; ■ [y cultural apparatus, if one can speak of that in 1968, was the - i li.i t of a previous generation which organized around the Mattachine š ■ -c:v and the Daughters of Bilitis. Reflecting the local and clandestine . ■- ,i.!. ter of these organizations, there were no national public lesbian- or ..■,-:i:,.ntified newspapers, magazines, or presses; no institutionalized .- \ .ut or theatre, and only a few gay-identified writers who mostly rti^u m isolation. Homosexual theory moved back and forth between \.c* of homosexuality as a secondary psychological disorder charac-\ ■ »i. of a segment of the population and a normal desire present in ■-. n ; degrees in the human population. The beginnings of a theory . i u- iiosexuality as an oppressed minority was voiced by radicals such - Marry Hay but largely ignored. Gay politics was overwhelmingly .'-.jived to civil rights with the aim of social assimilation (D'Emilio \ L^bian and gay liberationist movement emerged in response both to 'i.j :-ii-;ed heterosexualization of society and to the assimilationist poli-■:o ■: ".he homophile movement (Adam 1987; Altman 1982; Faderman .■■■ ' At its cultural forefront were mostly young, educated, white :..!■■.:. uals who identified themselves as gay hberationists or lesbian-■j: i! -ts. They criticized the heterosexism and sexism of the social m. i::*:. earn. Inspired by the new left and feminism, they substituted ■ si. i* [formative politics for the politics of assimilationism of the M- -t k nine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis. Liberationist thinking *.■*': h'cd several major strains. For example, homosexuality was often viewed as a natural, universal condition. Protest was aimed at the pathologizing of homosexuality. Homosexuality was being reclaimed as natural, normal, and good without challenging a sexual regime organized around hetero/homosexuality. However, some hberationists struggled against a system of mutually exclusive sexual and gender roles; they envisioned an androgynous, polymorphous ideal of humanity 120 Steven Seidman liberated from the roles of heterosexual/homosexual and p. , and from a narrow genital-centered sexuality. Other \i{\- .*■** especially lesbian-feminists and the "radical fairie movement. '"''*' and celebrated the differences between heterosexuals and he nio*.Mtl* radically nationalistic, they aimed to build a new community ,ii;,j tl!.li:i' Some proposed a separatist agenda while others appeale i *, ľľ"'* pluralistic images of the American mosaic. By the early 1970s, we can observe the beginnings of a lesbi ■; ....., national cultural apparatus. Liberationists were pivotal in '■krv,»."," intellectual culture. They published journals, magazines, :urt.k.7.",. and newspapers; national publications cropped up circulating nV*,, gay art, literature, and theory. Although many lesbian- and ga\. illt.ri.. Z intellectuals had ties to academia - indeed many were gradu .u- ^i.j^.V or professors - their writings were squarely anchored in ■n.i.ť.1Jri culture and politics. In part, this position reflected thei v,.^ -to academia (as junior faculty in a fiercely hostile setting i mj m- „ strong ties (e.g., through self-definition and community a]:ili.iiii.i, ■-the evolving movement. With their primary personal and *■ w.-i'. ,,, in the movement, gay liberationists and lesbian-feminist( .*,.■ c to merge the roles of intellectual and activist (e.g., Alu.i im n ; Bunch 1975). The style and language of their writing is i idú.: :j ,,■ the interests of movement activists, e.g., critiques that ty *k JK \v,llm the form of short essays, poems, pamphlets, manifestoeí ii<.nkk short stories, and autobiographical statements rather than in i'.\i\Ji or theoretically oriented books. Their work appeared in inexpensive newsletters, newspapers, pamphlets, or books and anthologies writtc. for general public consumption. In short, in the early years of gay liberation and lesbian-feminism, lesbian/gay intellectual culture was firmh rooted in movement concerns and public struggles. Liberationists were, if you will, public intellectuals, spokespersons for a social movement am community-in-the-making. A second phase of lesbian and gay culture spans roughly the mid-1970* to the mid-1980s. This was a period of community building and the political maturation of the lesbian and gay movements. A fully elaborated and institutionalized gay community dotted the social landscape of virtually all major cities across the United States. A pivotal part of this social development was the creation of a national, public lesbian and gay cultural apparatus that included newspapers, periodicals, gay national presses, and artistic and literary associations. A national gay and lesbian culture existed for the first time in the United States by the mid-1980s. Although gay liberationists were pivotal in this community-building Deconstructing queer theory ideas and agenda were marginalized in the new lesbian and .am. Liberationist visions of creating a new humanity gave \c nationalist models of identity and single-interest group red by either a liberal assimilationist ideal or, in the case of lism, a separatist ideological agenda. Being lesbian and gay ed, often as a natural, unchangeable condition, or, among lists, as a political choice. lligentsia appeared. With the institutionalization of lesbian/ ities across the nation, a new stratum of lesbian- and gay-Itural workers (e.g., writers, news reporters, artists, and roducers) could be supported by newspapers, magazines, lers, and theatres. Moreover, the expanded tolerance for ty in the mainstream United States allowed for the rise of a of gay academic intellectuals who made homosexuality into heir research and theorizing. Many of these academics had liberationism or lesbian-feminist communities. They were, critical of the view of homosexuality as a transhistorical hey disputed attempts to frame homosexual identity as srsally identical phenomenon without, however, breaking lentity politics. They approached homosexuality in social 1 terms. In particular, the merging of homosexuality and inalyzed as a recent Western historical event, not a natural, idition. »revious generation of lesbian- and gay-identified intellects, this generation (e.g., Weeks 1977; D'Emilio 1983; Boswell 1980; iderman 1981) were much more academically anchored. Mostly histo-íns, they often were tenured faculty; they wrote for academic journals published books in university presses; they were the first generation intellectuals who could succeed in academia despite assuming a lesbian gay identity. Although many of these intellectuals were academics, fir work was not divorced from movement culture and politics. In n. this unity reflects the fact that as historians they generally wrote in a style broadly accessible to the lay community, even as they aimed for recognition by their colleagues. Moreover, many had a history of social activism and were politically and socially integrated into lesbian and gay life; these lay communities were a chief audience for this new intelligentsia. Perhaps most importantly, their work, which focused on the social formation of a homosexual identity and community, reinforced the heightened minoritization of lesbian and gay life in the late 1970s. Thus, although many of these intellectuals wrote as academics seeking collegial status, their strong ties to the history and current politics of the 122 Steven Seidman ?^XX^^ ** discip]ines th intellectual. "^ to «*rge the roles of«* í* Vi«M- T«e third nh * academir - " f-w «* period beWeľlľ^ľ01^ iesbía*/gay inteí, ''" ^ form of fuiivin ľ he lesb,'an and gav „ ef>resent. Cr- S'V ous PeLľr„ ä,0ľ,Í2ed "^tt^ ^ fashion; in thP ;n . ,n the ™aricetine of hi ♦ mau|strc.-. **«&,&,„«, P"™sh,"g- Journals such as Ocll ?ecia!!- -r i Oxford Renew '^T1^«, •&*<* Atlantik', T S°tíal '<-' : «-/gay theme.feptC ^ PUWis^ m jor ^ fc- ' = umversity presses s™~ Presses, from Routldgľ ľnľľ * '' ' ««"vws, and write;s °^]f: Poets, essayists, pornoľanľ' ^^ "'" j a« controlling the nL '"singly gay- denSP "' P°,itic ■'' ' a« developnfen,? °dUCtlon of ,esb«n and «Í7^dJaca*aBÍ« «t- ! á the struľľ ggests thí« lesbians Z/yka°WledS^ Andwhi, -: *° -eÄ; rr the "«-«CľSrwi"have a ™ ' be'ween an ™*^."»teUechuü culture is nÓľ " °f kn°Wedgc, t «dens be Zet*™0 and "»acadeni ectTZ *"*" th™ -■ i y »P«ak m Affiant languages to t: ■»:'. Deconstructing queer theory 123 ,.-Cs their relations may be strained and weak; for example, ■lit invoke activists for political correctness while activists •ry for cultural respectability. n-iase has seen the rise of a new force in lesbian and gay [ture: queer theory. An older intellectual elite of self- v-^1"' ' ľiJters of lesbian and gay life (e.g., Katz 1976; Martin and ■i'"1 r" Kich 1980) and professional historians and social scientists ■"i,i [\ \ uili 3 1983; Trumbach 1977; Weeks 1977; Smith-Rosenberg ' ". :.,^ lootsand chief public were the lesbian and gay community, '' "* -i.- M»» ind in the struggle over defining knowledges of "homo- ' '' • i\ • ■* new cultural elite of academics who increasingly deploy '■xu "........%er to describe or position their approach. The most con- ") ins -i • ' of queer theory draws heavily on French poststructural m ".-■. „ikI "I * critical method of deconstruction. Producers of queer .- ', \ .m Migrated into academia more completely than previous ..r |.in- ■■'■!io produced gay knowledges; they are mostly English , ,,'t--.'.,"'. .'Iif pursue collegial status as well as recognition from the ' «hiiii m 1 ' nonacademicculturalelite,e.g.,publicwriters,editorsof ,, \ 'i u-* i' i newspapers, commercial publishers, and political elites. ■i i„. 'ii. ■ i '"'"í nave often come of age during a period of the renewed /»im!1 ■[ i I IV/AIDS politics and share a spirit of the renewal of -i«i.. in. . politics with groups like ACT-UP or Queer Nation. i., ,.j: "i. 'i is profoundly shaping gay intellectual culture, at least ..,.' '--■ ■ '' nreviously controlled by independent scholars, academic hi vi n* l-l social scientists. i.)i fc. i Ik . '■ i its are positioned to become a substantial force in shaping '..i\ m :i:il ■ ■ intellectual culture. Frequently unified by generation and ". ». .k-iik i.filiation, sharing a culture based on common conceptual uii .....- ■■ practices, and capturing the spirit of discontent toward ■'Mi Mi ii Mt mainstream and the lesbian and gay mainstream, queer ■"v -i i^ i i nportant social force in the making of gay intellectual iil'i......I I ■■ itics in the 1990s. I wish to contribute to understanding ■ ii"*. i i ■ ■ lis cultural movement. II. huonstructing gay identity: queer theory and the politics »I knowledge I1-" ■"» i......gay backlash, the lesbian and gay movement made giant " i '^ i i 111 i. )mmunity building and social mainstreaming in the 1980s, i" m -i __i_L_rs across the United States the lesbian and gay community staked out a public territorial, institutional, cultural, and political Steven Seidman identity. From this social base, lesbians and gay men campai ■■■..: a great deal of success, for social inclusion, as evidenced by civil p-í* legislation, political representation, legal reform, and the appearar V'* affirmative media representations. "*" ' Social success may, ironically, have allowed for hitherto-mutt-i" * ferences to surface publicly. Differences that were submerged fW*" sake of solidarity against a heterosexist mainstream erupted into pilr view. In particular, clashes over sexuality and race served as key siu, ,n! differences to coalesce socially. Local skirmishes over sexual ethio ■■."*. political priorities escalated into a general war over the social cohtrvrC and desirability of asserting a lesbian and gay identity (Seidman :'n\, The dominant ethnic nationalist model of identity and politic criticized for exhibiting white, middle-class, hetero-imitative valuo „n í liberal political interests. On the political front, parallel criticisms of *n,. lesbian and gay mainstream surfaced among HIV/AIDS activists (e.^ ACT-UP) and Queer Nation activists who positioned themselve-'n opposition to the normalizing, disciplining cultural politics of the IesSir-and gay social center. They challenged the very basis of mainstro .rr. gay politics: a politics organized on the premise of a unified subuv. By calling themselves queer, and by organizing around broad issue- ;>; controlling the body or access to health care, a new post-identity cuI1i:mí political force coalesced in the 1980s. On the intellectual front, a waw.-:' lesbian- and gay-identified people of color and sex radicals attacked ::k unitary gay identity construction as normative and as a disciplining ft ■!„■;■ which excludes and marginalizes many desires, acts, and identities oi lesbian- and gay-identified individuals. They evolved various alternant proposals for rethinking identity and politics, for example, the noíM. of interlocking subject positions and sites of oppression and resistant Nevertheless, it has been the movement of queer theorists, dramn^ on French poststructuralism, who have theoretically articulated ihr* challenge to identity politics and whose ideas have moved into n« center of lesbian and gay intellectual culture. Poststructural theory frames literary criticism less as a matter ■. defining or contesting a canon, engaging in a dialogue on presumably universal questions of literary form, or as delineating the form i1 structures of a text, than as a type of social analysis. Literary text-are viewed as social and political practices, as organized by social ai-il cultural codes, and indeed as social forces that structure identifies., soci.ii norms, and power relations. In particular, texts are viewed as organized around foundational symbolic figures such as masculine/feminine *v heterosexual/homosexual. Such binary oppositions are understood ■'* Deconstructing queer theory 125 of knowledge; they structure the way we think and organize * These linguistic and discursive meanings contribute to the social hierarchies. Deconstruction aims to disturb or displace ■ of these hierarchies by showing their arbitrary, social, and laracter. Deconstruction may be described as a cultural politics dee. It is this rendering of literary analysis into social analysis, ;ritique into social critique, of readings into a political practice, into the politics of knowledge, that makes deconstruction and theory inspired by it an important movement of theory and e the queer theorists? Some names may serve as initial lve Sedgwick (1990), Diana Fuss (1991), Judith Butler (1990, ; Edelman (1994), Michael Moon (1991), Teresa de Lauretis ."jOüj), Thomas Yingling (1990), and D. A. Miller (1991). Key texts ■ elude Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet (1990), Butler's Gender trouble (1990), and Diana Fuss's Essentially Speaking (1989). A central ,'atement is the anthology, Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, edited by Diana Fuss (1991). Let me be clear. I am not speaking of an ntellcctually and politically unified cultural movement. Queer theorists .:c a diverse lot exhibiting important disagreements and divergences. Nevertheless, they share certain broad commitments - in particular, .hey draw heavily on French poststructural theory and deconstruction \- a method of literary and social critique; they deploy in key ways piychoanalytic categories and perspectives; they favor a de-centering or ^constructive strategy that retreats from positive programmatic social . ■ d political proposals; they imagine the social as a text to be interpreted ■nd criticized towards the aim of contesting dominant knowledges and vdal hierarchies. í intend to sketch what I take to be the dominant intellectual and ivlitieal impulse of queer theory. I do not intend to provide detailed malyses of key texts. My aim is to make the project of a particularly .:iilucntial cultural movement intelligible and to begin to assess its importance. In the remainder of this section, I wish to state, as clearly as í can, the guiding impulse and core ideas of this body of work. Homosexual theory - whether essentialist or constructionist - has favored a view of homosexuality as a condition of a social minority. Although essentialist and constructionist perspectives may assume that homoeroticism is a universal experience, both viewpoints simultaneously aim to account for the making of a homosexual social minority. For example, an essentialist position might hold that only some individuals are exclusively or primarily homosexual. Holding to this assumption, the 126 Steven Seidman analyst might proceed to explain how this homosexual population I come to speak for itself as a social minority. A social construct^, . position might assume that, though same-sex experiences are a univei* condition, only some individuals in some societies organize their Ij-,. around homoeroticism. A social analyst who assumes constructioi.-.-premises may wish to trace the social factors which have transform.- ■ this universal homoerotic desire into a homosexual identity. Desr-ii. differences between so-called essentialist and constructionist assun-. tions regarding same-sex experience, lesbian and gay analysts have be v-preoccupied with explaining the social forces creating a self-conscicis homosexual minority. Both essentialist and social constructionist visions of lesbian/gay theory in the 1970s and 1980s have related stoi,., of the coming of age of a collective homosexual subject. Queer theorists have criticized the view of homosexuality as a prope r:, of an individual or group, whether that identity is explained as natu-.: or social in origin. They argue that this perspective leaves in place ľ;-heterosexual/homosexual binary as a master framework for construct! ■:.. the self, sexual knowledge, and social institutions. A theoretical řiu. political project which aims exclusively to normalize homosexuality ant to legitimate homosexuality as a social minority does not challeng social regime which perpetuates the production of subjects and son " worlds organized and regulated by the heterosexual/homosexual bins \. Minoritizing epistemological strategies stabilizes a power/knowleiLj regime which defines bodies, desires, behaviors, and social relatie::-in binary terms according to a fixed hetero/homo sexual preferen^ Such linguistic and discursive binary figures inevitably get framed :n hierarchical terms, thus reinforcing a politics of exclusion and domination. Moreover, in such a regime homosexual politics is pressuui! to move between two limited options: the liberal struggle to legitim iw homosexuality in order to maximize a politics of inclusion and "1\ separatist struggle to assert difference on behalf of a politics of ethi \ nationalism. To date, the dominant logic of lesbian and gay politics has been tha' ■: battling heteronormativity toward the end of legitimating homosexual i -As important as that project is, queer theorists have exposed its linri* A binary sex system, whether compulsively heterosexual or not, creai^ rigid psychological and social boundaries that inevitably give rise ' ■ systems of dominance and hierarchy - certain feelings, desires, a<>-identities, and social formations are excluded, marginalized, and ma--* inferior. To the extent that individuals feel compelled to define the "ii-selves as hetero-or-homosexual, they erect boundaries and protecti--<. Deconstructing queer theory 127 entities which are self-limiting and socially controlling. Moreover, entity constructions developed on the basis of an exclusively hetero--„homo desire are inherently unstable; the assertion of one identity tegory presupposes, incites, and excludes its opposite. The decla-iion of heterosexual selfhood elicits its opposite, indeed needs the )tI10Sexual in order to be coherent and bounded. In fact, the very msciousness of the homosexual other cannot but elicit suspicions of jRiosexual desire in oneself and others across the range of daily same-sex teractions, friendships, dreams, fantasies, and public images. Hetero-xuality and homosexuality belong together as an unstable coupling, liultaneously mutually productive and subverting. Beyond producing a series of psychological, social, and political oppo-ions and instabilities, a binary sexual regime places serious limits on xual theory and politics. To the extent that sexual (and self) identity defined by sexual orientation equated with gender preference, a vast nge of desires, acts, and social relations are never made into an object theory and politics. To equate sexual liberation with heterosexual and unosexual legitimation presupposes an extremely reductive notion of tiie sexual" since it leaves out of consideration any explicit concern with the body, sensual stimulation, and sex acts and relations other than in terms of gender preference. Implicit in the texts of the queer theorists is the claim that the mainstream focus on legitimating a homo-sexual preference and identity betrays middle-class, conventional intimate values. By focusing politics exclusively on legitimating same-sex gender choice, the lesbian and gay movement leaves politically uncontested a range of particular sexual and intimate values that may be marginalized or devalued in other respects. In other words, the gay mainstream takes for granted the normative status of long-term monogamous, adult-to-adult, intraracial, intragenerational, romantic sexual and intimate values. If a person's sexual orientation involves, say, same-sex S/M or interracial or commercial sex, s/he would be resistant to reducing the politics of sexual orientation to gender preference and the legitimation of a homosexual identity. The gay mainstream, including gay theory, is criticized as a disciplining, normative force, one unwittingly reinforcing dynamics of exclusion and hierarchy. Queer theorists argue that homosexuality should not be treated as an issue of the lives and fate of a social minority. Implicit in this approach is the notion that the identity of the individual is the ultimate foundation for gay theory and politics. The gay community and its politics is imagined as the summation and mobilization of individuals who are self-defined as gay or lesbian. Queer critics urge an epistemological 128 Steven Seidman shift. They propose to focus on a cultural level. Their field of ana! ,- is linguistic or discursive structures and, in principle, their institutit- settings. Specifically, their object of analysis is the hetero/homose';i ■!■ opposition. This is understood as a category of knowledge, a wa. " defining and organizing selves, desires, behaviors, and social rclatii -,' Through the articulation of this hetero/homosexual figure in texts ■■ * social practices (e.g., therapeutic regimes or marital customs and la-*," it contributes to producing mutually exclusive heterosexualized v ■ homosexualized subjects and social worlds. Just as feminists clair: *■> have discovered a gender code (the masculine/feminine binary) w ■[■.- shapes the texture of personal and public life, a parallel claim is ir. .■■ for the hetero/homosexual figure. Queer interventions urge a shift fr. -, a framing of the question of homosexuality in terms of personal ider.'.-, and the politics of homosexual oppression and liberation to imagfc n! homosexuality in relation to the cultural politics of knowledge. In V\, regard, queer theory places the question of homosexuality at the ce.i!„r of society and social analysis. Queer theory is less a matter of explaining the repression or expression of a homosexual minority than an anal1 <... of the hetero/homosexual figure as a power/knowledge regime th.ť. shapes the ordering of desires, behaviors, and social institutions, ury. social relations - in a word, the constitution of the self and society. The shift from approaching homosexuality as an issue of individ. ■ identity (its repression, expression, and liberation) to viewing it s» j cultural figure or category of knowledge is the central claim of I.'.l Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet (1990). Her opening paragraph announces a framing of homosexuality in terms of a cultural politic o\ knowledge. Epistemology of the Closet proposes that many of the major nodes ■■" thought and knowledge in twentieth-century Western culture as a wl >*■ are structured - indeed, fractured - by a chronic, now endemic c t-of homo/heterosexual definition . . . The book will argue that an umki-standing of virtually any aspect of modern Western culture must be, ::■■ merely incomplete, but damaged in its central substance to the degree fli.s it does not incorporate a critical analysis of modern homo/heteroscA definition. (Sedgwick 1990 ! From the turn of the [nineteenth] century "every given person . was now considered necessarily assignable ... to a homo-or-a-hete:*' sexuality, a binarized identity ... It was this new development that i-.ii no space in the culture exempt from the potent incoherences of honi-1 ■ heterosexual definition" (Sedgwick 1990, 2). The homo/heterosexi'-l definition is said to shape the culture of society, not just individu''! Deconstructing queer theory 129 Htics and behaviors. It does so, moreover, not only by imposing * i definitions on bodies, actions, and social relations, but, perhaps I significantly, by shaping broad categories of thought and culture , thematic focus is not always explicitly sexual. hink that a whole cluster of the most crucial sites for the contestation meaning in twentieth-century western culture are consequently and quite ■teliblv marked with the historical specificity of homo-social/heterosexual ffnition . • • Among those sites are . . . the pairings secrecy/disclosure and ivate/public. Along with and sometimes through these epistemologically areed pairings, condensed in the figures of "the closet" and "coming t" this very specific crisis of definition has then ineffaceably marked fier pairings as basic to modern cultural organization as masculine/feminine, liority/minority, innocence/initiation, natural/ artificial, new/old, growth/deca-nce, urbane/provincial, health/illness, same/different, cognition/paranoia, i/kitsch, sincerity/sentimentality, and voluntarity/addiction. So pervasive s the suffusing stain of homo/heterosexual crisis been that to discuss any these indices in any context, in the absence of an antihomophobic analysis, must perhaps be to perpetuate unknowingly compulsions implicit in each. (Sedgwick 1990, 72) Sedgwick insists that these categories of knowledge are unstable. Modem Western sexual definitions move between contradictory positions. For example homosexuality may be viewed as specific to a minority of the human population (i.e., some individuals are exclusively homosexual) or understood as universal (i.e., all people are thought to have homosexual desires). The instability of the homo/hetero sexual definition makes it a favorable site for deconstructive analysis. "One main strand of argument in this book is deconstructive . . . The analytic move it makes is to demonstrate that categories presented in a culture as symmetrical binary oppositions - heterosexual/homosexual, in this case - actually subsist in a more unsettled and dynamic tacit relation" (Sedgwick 1990, 9-10). Sedgwick wishes to reveal the instability of this symbolic trope and to disrupt its hierarchical structuring for the purpose of displacing or neutralizing its social force. In the collection Inside/Out (Fuss 1991), the figuring of society as a social text and of social analysis into deconstructive analysis is made into the programmatic center of queer theory. Departing from Sedgwick, who attends exclusively to the canonized texts of academic "high" culture, the contributors to this volume deploy a deconstructive critical method on the "texts" of popular culture, e.g., Alfred Hitchcock's film Rope (Miller 1991), the 1963 horror movie, The Haunting (White 1991), or popular representations of Rock Hudson (Meyer 1991). 130 Steven Seidman In her introduction to Inside/Out (1991) and in Essentially spe>-ing (1989), Diana Fuss sketches a framework for a deconstructi." or queer cultural politic of knowledge. She contrasts conventior" approaches to identity which view it as a property of an object w-'' a poststructural approach which defines identity as a discursive re! ' tional figure. "Deconstruction dislocates the understanding of identľ as self-presence and offers, instead, a view of identity as different.' To the extent that identity always contains the specter of non-identi*-within it, the subject is always divided and identity is always purchas-; at the price of the exclusion of the Other, the repression or repudiati ■-of non-identity" (Fuss 1989, 103). In other words, persons or objcn» acquire identities only in contrast to what they are not. The affirmati ■■! of an identity entails the production and exclusion of that which u different or the creation of otherness. This otherness, though, is ntw.' truly excluded or silenced; it is present in identity and haunts it as i. limit or impossibility. Fuss applies this deconstructive approach to the hetero/homosexi.' figure: The philosophical opposition between "heterosexual" and "homosexual" . has always been constructed on the foundations of another related opposiric-, the couple "inside" and "outside." The metaphysics of identity that has go ■ erned discussions of sexual behavior and libidinal object choice has, until no* depended on the structural symmetry of these seemingly functional distinctio and the inevitability of a symbolic order based on a logic of limits, m;irgii-borders, and boundaries. Many of the current efforts in lesbian and gay iheoi1. which this volume seeks to showcase, have begun the difficult but urge f textual work necessary to call into question the stability and ineiaiiicabil!-. of the hetero/homo hierarchy, suggesting that new (and old) sexual possibility are no longer thinkable in terms of a simple inside/outside dialectic But hov exactly, do we bring the hetero/homo opposition to the point of collapse? (1991, i The point of departure for queer theory is not the figure of homoscxu.ii repression and the struggle for personal and collective expression or th-_ making of homosexual/gay/lesbian identities but the hetero/homoscxu -I discursive or epistemological figure. The question of its origin is lc" compelling than a description of its social textual efficacy. Thus, virtually every essay in InsidelOut searches out this symbolic figure -i a wide range of publicly circulating social texts. To the extent th.': Fuss's introduction is intent on making the case for shifting theoiy away from its present grounding in identity concepts to a cultur-! or epistemological centering, she intends to underscore, and indee«. Deconstructing queer theory 131 tribute to, the destabilizing of the hetero/homo code and the limits •'. politics organized around the affirmation of a homo-sexual identity. J: -> rehearses the standard deconstructive critique: the hetero/homo •dc creates hierarchies of insides and outsides. A politics organized und an affirmative homo-sexual identity reinforces this code and -i >atcs its own inside/outside hierarchy. " Deconstructive analysis aims to expose the limits and instabilities of a ■ -n-irv identity figure. "Sexual identities are rarely secure. Heterosexu-.ii tv can never fully ignore the close psychical proximity of its terrifying "ľo'mo) sexual other, any more than homosexuality can entirely escape .„e equally insistent social pressures of (hetero) sexual conformity. Each ■'» haunted by the other . . ." (Fuss 1991, 4). Deconstructive analysis •i-vcals that the hetero/homo presuppose each other, each is elicited ■■v the other, contained, as it were, in the other, which ultimately »counts tor the extreme defensiveness, the hardening of each into a ■Mimdcd. self-protective hardcore and, at the same time, the opposite «„■ndencv toward confusion and collapse. "The fear of the homo, which ■„■'ntinually rubs up against the hetero (tribadic-style), concentrates and „» difies the very real possibility and ever-present threat of a collapse of "uundaries, an effacing of limits, and a radical confusion of identities" iľuss 1991, 6). The collapse of this binary identity figure as a cultural «■. cial force and as a framework of opposition politics as identity politics ■■* the aim of the deconstructive project. Fuss advocates a politics of „i.ltural subversion. "What is called for is nothing less than an insistent ..:id intrepid disorganization of the very structures which produce this .::cscapable logic" (1991, 6). III. The limits of queer textualism I :om the beginning of the homophile movement in the 1950s through ť y liberationism and the ethnic nationalism of the 1980s, lesbian and ..\.y theory in the United States has been wedded to a particular .".iĽtanarrative. This has been a story of the formation of a homosexual -»abject and its mobilization to challenge a heteronormative society. Gay ii:eory has been linked to what I wish to call a "politics of interest." This infers to a politics organized around the claims for rights and social, t-L.ltural, and political representation by a homosexual subject. In the '"•rly homophile quest for tolerance, in the gay liberationist project of ■■■'crating the homosexual self, or in the ethnic nationalist assertion of ■ »lUii' rights and representation, the gay movement has been wedded to 1 politics of interest. 132 Steven Seidman Queer theory has proposed an alternative to, or supplement of paradigm of an identity-based politics of interest. Abandoning homosexual subject as the foundation of theory and politics. nU critics take the hetero/homosexual discursive figure as its object knowledge and critique. This binary is said to function as a cení category of knowledge which structures broad fields of Western cult and social conventions. Queer social analysts expose the ways i epistemological figure functions in Western culture and social practic The hetero/homosexual definition serves as a sort of global framewi within which bodies, desires, identities, behaviors, and social relati. are constituted and regulated. Queer theorists, or at least one prominent strain, may be descril as proposing a cultural "politics of knowledge." Their aim is to trace ways the hetero/homo figure structures discourses and representati which are at the center of Western societies. They aim to make ■ theory central to social theory or cultural criticism, rather than appro1 it as a minority discourse. Paralleling the Marxist or feminist cla about the bourgeois/proletariat and masculine/feminine oppositio queer analysts claim for the hetero/homo binary the status of a ma« category of social analysis. They wish to contest this structure of kno edge and cultural paradigm. They intend to subvert the hetero/ho hierarchy not with the goal of celebrating the equality or superio of homosexuality nor with the hope of liberating a homosexual subji Rather, the deconstructive project of queer theory and politics aim: neutralizing and displacing the social force of this cultural figure. But what means and to what end? As I consider the politics of queer theory, I will register so reservations. We have seen that, as I read this intervention, qu social critics are clear about their aim and strategy: they wish to tr . the cultural operation of the hetero/homo hierarchical figure with . aim of reversing and disturbing its infectious and pervasive social pov But how? What force is claimed for deconstructive critique and wha its ethical and political standpoint? Fuss insists that the aim of queer analysis is to "question the í bility and ineradicability of the hetero/homo hierarchy [and to bri -the hetero/homo opposition to the point of collapse" (1991. J). 1 how? Fuss calls for an "analysis interminable, a responsibility to ea sustained pressure from/on the margins to reshape and to rcori the field of sexual difference to include sexual differences" (1991, Fuss does not assume that this "analysis interminable" is sufficient subvert the hetero/homo hierarchy. Cultural critique must be wedt Deconstructing queer theory 133 jj.jcs of interest. Fuss assumes that only social agents challenging -ťtutional arrangements and relations of power can effect a major '.„ril and social change. However, she also believes that current social mcnts such as the lesbian and gay and women's movements are anized around the assertion of unitary, essentialized identities which řnetuate and stabilize the hetero/homo figure. This is her dilemma: , verv subjects positioned to trouble the hetero/homo hierarchy are -ested in it. Deconstructive critique cannot disavow identity, as it is . verv subjects who claim identities as man, woman lesbian, and gay io arc the only agents of change. Thus, the queer project aims to construct and refigure identities as multiple and fluid with the hope at "such a view of identity as unstable and potentially disruptive . . . uki in the end produce a more mature identity politics . . . [and] stable ■litical subjects" (Fuss 1989, 104). Unfortunately, there is no analysis what such subjects might look like or what configuration of interests d social will might propel them to instigate the kinds of changes Fuss shes. Indeed, there is no account of the social conditions (e.g., changes the economy or state or class, gender, or racial formation) that make r own critique of identity politics possible. What social forces are oducing this political and discursive pressuring on the center? This dcT-theorization of the social is even clearer in Eve Sedgwick. Sedgwick is no idealist. She is keenly aware of the limits of constructive analysis. Sedgwick holds that "there is reason to believe it the oppressive sexual system of the past hundred years was if ything born and bred ... in the briar patch of the most notorious and seated decenterings and exposures" (1990, 10). The staying power of ; hetero/homo figure rests, in no small part, on the fact that it has been irticulated in a dense cultural network of normative definitions and íaries such as secrecy/disclosure, knowledge/ignorance, private/public, íiirul/artificial, wholeness/decadence, domestic/foreign, urbane/prov-:ial, health/illness, and sincerity/sentimentality. In other words, the tero/homo figure is woven into the core cultural premises and dcťslandings of Western societies. At one level, Sedgwick's project to identify the ways the hetero/homo definition has been sustained being written into the cultural organization of Western societies. ■ :re we may raise an initial concern about the politics of knowledge, the exposure of the instabilities and contradictions of the hetero/-mo structuring of Western cultural configurations does not effectively place or de-center this figure, deconstructive critique would seem to vc surrendered much, if not all, political force. Sedgwick seems to acknowledging that the social force of the deconstructive critique is 134 Steven Seidman contingent upon its being connected to a politics of interest. How • the only politics of interest she alludes to is the varied moveniem '^ homosexual politics, which assume the validity of the hetero/homo fi ■,'"' while challenging its particular hierarchical ordering. It would seem '"* the logical move for Sedgwick is to link cultural to social analysis an'V couple a deconstructive critique of knowledge to a constructive pol-i-' of interest. Unfortunately, Sedgwick's analysis remains at the levf ,-! the critique of knowledge and the de-centering of cultural mcanr--' an intervention which by her own account has been going on io-century. This uncoupling of cultural from social analysis is a deparn'.-ľ from at least the original intention of Derrida, who insisted on linW* discursive meanings to their institutional settings and thereby connect :'* deconstructive to institutional critique. "What is somewhat hastily cf !! ■ "■ deconstruction is not... a specialized set of discursive procedures [but] a way of taking a position, in its work of analysis, conccri.-the political and institutional structures that make possible and gey ■.■-■, our practices . . . Precisely because it is never concerned onlv -i,-. signified content, deconstruction should not be separable from -... politico-institutional problematic" (Derrida, quoted in Culler 1982. l^-.i Queer theory has largely abandoned institutional analysis. In Sedgui.* the hetero/homo definition functions as an autonomous cultural k-...... prolifically generating categories and fields of knowledge. These is|-tural meanings are never linked to social structural arrangement- •: processes such as nationalism, colonialism, globalization, or dynaiiu-of class or family formation or popular social movements. Lacking .:. understanding of the ways cultural meanings are interlaced with so. -I forces, especially in light of Sedgwick's analysis of the productive -u infectious character of the hetero/homo figure, greatly weakens w political force of her analysis. Queer theory is a response to the hierarchies of sexual and homo-. \-ual politics. No less than liberationist or lesbian-feminist theory. qu\. analysis is responding to the damaged lives and suffering engendered :c a compulsively heterosexual society. The former approach homosti ..-■ politics by asserting a homosexual subject struggling for liberals:: against oppression. By contrast, queer theorists approach homosou»: politics in relation to a power/knowledge regime organized around "ii.1 hetero/homo hierarchical figure which is said to function as a imNi.-' framework for the constitution and ordering of fields of knowledge ■ '-J cultural understandings which shape the making of subjectivities, so. -relations, and social norms. I perceive a parallel with many femiiv discourses in the 1980s. In the face of the staying power of ni.l. Deconstructing queer theory 135 , and resistance to change, many feminists in the 1980s turned ' ''' i m learning theory and sex-role theory to psychoanalytic theory ■ť'"-' auasi-naturalistic gynocentric or cultural feminism. Queer "" " «Mtgoests a deep cultural logic to explain the staying power of '•'•"%" eXjsm. The roots of heterosexism are not socialization, prejudice, ' "L'-'i'on or scapegoating. but a basic way of organizing knowledges and "'"■' f daily life which are deeply articulated in the core social practices ] \K\ stern societies. ' ■ ■ >er theory analyzes homosexuality as part of a power/knowledge .! i» rather than as a minority social identity. It hopes to contribute .""■'i stabilizing this regime, to disrupt its foundational cultural status. »■i m what end? What is the ethical and political standpoint of queer -IR.-'V? , , deconstructive critique of the hetero/homo hierarchical figure ., ľ„ií to a politics of difference. Its goal is to release possibilities m- 'odily, sexual, and social experiences which are submerged or ... i ■ nalized by the dominant regime. Queer theory's social hope is říjil to proliferating forms of personal and social difference. The queer * ■ ík'S of difference is, I believe, different in important respects from ; ■ .insertion of difference that surfaced in the race and sex debates. Ir :l «.■ latter case, the assertion of difference often remained tied to a ■ .-Ii'. .s of identity; the aim was to validate marginalized subjects and i.'ii:i:*unities. For example, the cultural criticism of people of color did v. »^construct or contest identity categories but sought to multiply ■ik-i u :y political standpoints. Deconstructive queer theorists affirm the mi: i u ing of new subject voices but are critical of its identity political _.i>i..,ding in the name of a more insistent politics of difference. Despite :-. 111 ique of methodological individualism or the view of the individual ■* '.■• source and center of knowledge, society, and history, much queer ■jii'O",', at least its deconstructive currents, is wedded to a social vision •v ■»» ultimate value lies in promoting individuality and tolerance of >i ,l- jnce; where queer theory does not edge into an anarchistic social .. ! -t gestures towards a democratic pluralistic ideal. 1 !i tie between queer theory and a politics of difference needs to *: i least provisionally queried. What kind of politics is this and "':' kinds of differences are intended and with what ethical force? 1 .. ■ tunately, we must proceed obliquely since queer theorists have :■' ' rectly engaged such questions. Consider Eve Sedgwick. If one ■ I... aims is to explain the persistence of compulsive heterosexuality ■'■ f- erence to the hetero/homo figure as productive of cultural fields ■I r!.)wledge, her other aim is to expose the ways a multitude of 136 Steven Seidman desires have been muted, marginalized, and depoliticized by this n er/knowledge regime. Sedgwick exposes the monumental constrict-involved in defining sexual orientation primarily by gender preferen.. Revealing the immense condensation entailed in rendering the gen ■*, of sexual-object choice into a master category defining sexual and soi/.'i identity is a main pivot of her work. Historically, the framing of Epistemology of the Closet begins with a puzzle '• is a rather amazing fact that, of the many dimensions along which the gcr-r.-activity of one person can be differentiated from that of another (dimensi ■■ that include preference for certain acts, certain zones or sensations, ccr ■ ■ physical types, a certain frequency, certain symbolic investments, cer1 relations of age or power, a certain species, a certain number of participa--. etc. etc. etc.), precisely one, the gender of object choice, emerged from \?» turn of the century, and has remained, as the dimension denoted by the i. „ ubiquitous category of "sexual orientation" . . . Epistemology of the Closet c\ .■* not have an explanation to offer for this sudden, radical condensation of se: ■ categories; instead, . . . the book explores its unpredictably varied and ai \\ implications and consequences. (Sedgwick 1990, ŕ ■■ As hetero/homosexuality become master categories of a sexual regiii-,-as sexual desires, identities, and politics are comprehended by the hetero/homo object choice, a whole series of possible sites of individuation, identity, pleasure, social definition, and politics (e.g., sei act, number of partners, time, place, technique) are suppressed .r depoliticized. The moral and political force of Sedgwick's critique ■■• the hetero/homo figure, as I read her, draws on the cultural capital ■■[ a politics of sexual difference. Against the sexual and social condens ■-tion of the hetero/homo power/knowledge regime, Sedgwick implicit, appeals to an order of sexual difference. This is a social ideal whtrfc desires, pleasures, bodies, social relations, and sexualities multiply a".J proliferate. But what would such an order of difference look like? Wh..: ethical guidelines would permit such sexual innovation while being attentive to considerations of power and legitimate normative regulation? N ■■ all self and social expressions would be tolerated; we cannot evade ť'c need for a sexual ethic and regulation, including structures of disciplK and moral hierarchy. What would such a normative order look like Sedgwick's silence on these matters is, I think, indicative of a refu>.!i on the part of many queer theorists to articulate their own ethical ar.« political standpoint and to imagine a constructive social project. In Gender Trouble (1990) and elsewhere (1991), Judith Butler p:*--poses a variant of deconstructive analysis but one which gestu*-.^ Deconstructing queer theory 137 ■s a constructive politics. Butler's focus is a system of compulsive ' "f '.,,-exuality which is said to contribute to the formation of a bipolar "."*"■-nder system. In this power/knowledge regime, a rigid natural "Vi-i .s posited that assumes a causality that proceeds from a bipolar 1. \\ subject (male or female), to gender bipolarity (men and women), **. i :u a heteronormative sexuality. Butler aims to show that instead . n .tural sex/gender system underwriting heterosexuality, the latter .Ve iinconscious compulsion behind figuring a natural, dichotomous ^ -x .vider system as an order of truth. In a deconstructive move, Butler .. ■■! :o trouble this power/knowledge regime by suggesting that this 'rc-in .ed order of nature is a contingent, politically enacted social order, l.» ■.l.--trate this point, she analyzes drag as a practice which disturbs the w\ .viider/sexuality system by presumably exhibiting the performative vh i:.'i i er of sex anc* gender and its fluid relation to sexuality. Butler is :ii i ■•ii-igesting drag or a performative politics as an alternative to the ■vln.1.* of interest; rather she is proposing, as I read her, that the current Wi>\-in sex/gender/compulsively heterosexual system is maintained, .■i >\ii:( because it functions as a configuration of knowledge. This ■_■ ■■Ai-: knowledge regime needs to be exposed as social and political; j:.....i performative disruptions are practical counterparts, as it were, ■ .L.^instructive critique. They do not replace the politics of interest dui supplement it. For Butler, deconstructive analysis takes aim at a system of compulsive heterosexuality which is said to underpin the production of bipolar sexed and gendered subjects. Her critique aims to undermine this sex/gender/sexual order for the purpose of ending the compulsion lo enact a rigid bipolar gender identity and conform to a narrow heterosexuality. Butler's critique is inspired by an ideal of difference -by the possibilities of a social space where selves can fashion bodies, gender identities, and sexualities without the normative constraints of compulsive heterosexuality and bipolar gender norms. In this regard, drag serves as more than an exemplar of cultural politics; it prefigures a social ideal - of a porous, fluid social terrain that celebrates individuality and difference. Her appeal to difference, however, lacks an ethical reflection. For example, which differences are permissible and what norms would guide such judgements? Moreover, I detect in Butler the suggestion of a post-identity order as part of a social ideal characterized by minimal disciplinary and constraining structures. But what would such an order look like? What concept of self or subject is imaginable in the absence of a strong identity concept? Moreover, are not such identities productive of rich experiences, subjective stability, and social bonds? Steven Seidman if self identities were not regulatory, what structures would ss-organize subjectivities? * " IV. The university and the politics of knowledge Deconstruction originated in France in the late 1960s. A react...- . both structuralism and the social rebellions issuing from new ov-, '* tional subjects (e.g., prisoners, students, cultural workers, wor- -"" deconstruction exhibited the spirit of rebellion of a post-Marxiaii' r, It advocated a politics of negative dialectics, of permanent rcsiM -'. to established orders and hierarchies. Animating the spirit o V-1968 was a politics of difference, a vaguely anarchistic, aesthe u/" ideal of fashioning a social space of minimal constraint and mdMiu»-' individuality and tolerance of difference. However, deconstructs n »< supposed subjects with bounded identities who conformed to nom .;,■. orders which made discipline and political mobilization possibl .* condition of their own critique and a transformative politics. Mor. -.f deconstructive critics have been notorious in refusing to artieuk.:. \i ethical standpoint of their critique and politics making them vulru i \ to charges of nihilism or opportunism. As we have seen, many . .,, same limitations are evident in queer theory. Queer theory originated in the United States, amongst mostly E njh, and Humanities professors in the 1980s. It would be a mistake, ho*, .„r to dismiss queer theory as merely academic. Its roots are, in pari Hj renewed activism of the 1980s associated with HIV/AIDS activis :i m. the confrontational, direct-action, anti-identity politics of Queer N i m. Moreover, I wish to suggest that much queer theory can be vie.* i .<■ a response to the development in the postwar United States ľ iL university as a chief site in the production and validation of know .ii\\ The university and its disciplinary knowledges have become a 11 ■■■■■ terrain of social conflict as knowledge is viewed as a key social i "■.-■■ Knowledges were of course politicized in the social rebellions ■'. ilk 1960s. For example, feminists criticized the social sciences for proi.Ui.': knowledges which constructed and positioned women as dif- -in inferior, and socially subordinate to men. In the 1980s, debate- •.*-■ canons and multiculturalism have rendered the sphere of knout.*1 - « key arena of politics. Accordingly, the housing of queer theory >■ :■:" university should not, as some critics fear, be interpreted as nea**" * depoliticizing theory. To the contrary, its academic positioning n ■* * a cultural politics of disciplinary knowledges possible. Such a poi '*■" * important precisely because such knowledges are a major social '!«■». Deconstructing queer theory 139 ubiects and social practices. Although we need to interrogate iVcs of knowledge in terms of how it articulates with a politics of it would be a mistake to dismiss its key role in social struggles . stern postmodernity. nersuasive force of the queer project depends on the extent to one assumes that the dominant models of lesbian and gay politics ose the hetero/homo binary. Queer interventions aim to expose mconscious complicity in reproducing a heteronormative order order that condenses sexual freedom to legitimating same-sex r preference. Yet queer theorists have often surrendered to a v culturalism or textualism; they have not articulated their critique pledge with a critique of the social conditions productive of extual figures; they have not provided an account of the social ions of their own critique. The "social" is often narrowed into iries of knowledge and culture while the latter is itself often id to linguistic, discursive binary figures. The "historical" is -ly reduced to an undifferentiated space, e.g., the modern West r the period 1880-1980 in modern Western societies. Finally, the thical standpoint of their own discourses is veiled. Queer critics have •fused to give social and moral articulation to the key concepts of iffcrcnce as they invoke it to critique the compulsiveness to identity i modern Western societies. If we are to recover a fuller social critical :rspective and a transformative political vision, one fruitful direction to articulate a politics of knowledge with an institutional social lalysis that does not disavow a willingness to spell out its own ethical andpoint. References ■vish to thank Linda Nicholson and the "Theory and Cultural Studies" cioiogy group of the Northeast (especially Charles Lemert, Patricia .oiigh, Ron Lembo, and Roz Bologh) for their helpful comments on rlicr drafts. dam, Barry. 1987. The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement. Boston: Twayne. Itman, Dennis. 1971. Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation. New York: Avon Books. 1982. The Homosexualization of America. Boston: Beacon Press. Jswcll, John. 1980. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Steven Seidman Bunch, Charlotte. 1975. "Lesbians in Revolt." In Lesbianism , • Women's Movement, ed. Charlotte Bunch and Nancy Myron' u* timore, Md.: Diana Press. **■' Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversiv-Identity. New York: Routledge. "*' 1991. "Imitation and Gender Subordination." In Inside/Out, cd r>; Fuss, 13-31. New York: Routledge. ' ' ** Culler, Jonathan. 1982. On Deconstruction, Ithaca, N. 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"Rock Hudson's Body." In Inside/Out, cd. Dusí. Fuss, 259-88. New York: Routledge. Miller, D. A. 1991. "Anal Rope." In Inside/Out, ed. Diana Fuss, 11" -i. New York: Routledge. Moon, Michael. 1991. Disseminating Whitman. Cambridge: Hirvi-'-! University Press. Rich, Adrienne. 1980. "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian I m-'- ence." Signs, 5 (Summer): 631-60. Sedgwick, Eve. 1990. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: Uni".*.i*i'> of California Press. Seidman, Steven. 1993. "Identity and Politics in a Gay 'Postmula:-Culture: Some Historical and Conceptual Notes." In Few "■' ■■" Deconstructing queer theory 141 •■ & Planet, ed. Michael Warner, 105-42. Minneapolis, Minn.: [■^versity of Minnesota Press. ■i. v asenberg, Carroll. 1975. "The Female World of Love and Ritual: "I!' r 'i ttions Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America." Signs, ; . \utumn): 1-29. ., i- >ch Randolph. 1977. "London's Sodomites: Homosexual Behav-|f- „ iind Western Culture in the Eighteenth Century." Journal of 'l'.. al History, 11: 1-33. ■ In.\ Simon. 1992. "Lesbian and Gay Studies in the Age of AIDS." *"! \\Q (March): 42-43, 72-73. u . -i,-, leffrey. 1977. Coming Out. London: Quartet Books. ^1,.,-j Thomas. 1990. Hart Crane and the Homosexual Text. Chicago: I diversity of Chicago Press. Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1995 First published 1995 Reprinted 1996 Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data Social postmodernism: beyond identity politics / edited by Linda Nicholson and Steven Seidman. p. cm. - (Cambridge cultural social studies) ISBN 0 521 47516 3 (hardback) - ISBN 0 521 47571 6 (pbk.) 1. Sociology - Methodology. 2. Group identity. 3. Political sociology. 4. Social movements. 5. Postmodernism - Social aspects. I. Nicholson, Linda J. II. Seidman, Steven. III. Series. HM24.S5443 1995 301'.01-dc20 94-49039CIP ISBN 0521 47516 3 hardback ISBN 0521 47571 6 paperback To the memory of Sunny Mintz and Samuel Seidman - S. S. To Neil - L. N.