[-empyre-] In Response to Virginia: Queer Violence Trans-posed

[Robert Summers]

Quick email ... migraine ... heat ... exhaustion ...

Yes, Virginia, it is about, I think, oscillation, vacillation ... the
kiss, to the blow, to the bite, to the kiss, to the blow ... to all
other kinds of touchings and hittings and bitings -- both oscillation,
vacillation: no solidification, stabilization.  I think this is a
(potential) "queer tactic," or "queer strategy," here: indeed,
"queering Derrida."

In your words, "This oscillation is vitally important, I think, if we
are to take up violence as part of a queer operation without
reproducing the problems present within the sites from which we
generate that image/metaphor."  But to add one thing, one element:
Derrida's comment, philosophizing, is a reply to Jean-Luc Nancy's
discussion of touching, so (perhaps) this is not a metaphor.

Anecdote: I do hit my love(r), even as I tenderly kiss him.  Also, I
think this is alluding to what Lacan via Freud has written about with
regard to Freud's _beyond_ the pleasure principal; it is not about
jouissance that simple translates as "bliss" -- but rather as a
violent shattering, a tearing apart of the subject (again), an
entering into (the) death drive) ... hmm ... the jouissance of "gay
male" bare-backing (now thinking of Bersani) ... so many types of
"violences" and "transgressions" ... queer as violent.  yes, yes.

So, Virginia, yes, yes ... !  I think you are right.  I may be
obsessing over (a certain) violence: over-determined?

More to follow.  I will respond to your other email tomorrow ... apologies.

As ever, Robert

Robert Summers, PhD/ABD
Lecturer
Art History and Visual Culture
Otis College of Art and Design
e: rsummers at otis.edu
w: http://ospace.otis.edu/robtsum/Welcome