The Weather in Proust gathers pieces written by the eminent critic and theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in the last decade of her life, as she worked toward a book on Proust. This book takes its title from the first essay, a startlingly original interpretation of Proust. By way of Neoplatonism, Buddhism, and the work of Melanie Klein, Sedgwick establishes the sense of refreshment and surprise that the author of the Recherche affords his readers. Proust also figures in pieces on the poetry of C. P. Cavafy, object relations, affect theory, and Sedgwick’s textile art practices. More explicitly connected to her role as a pioneering queer theorist are an exuberant attack against reactionary refusals of the work of Guy Hocquenghem and talks in which she lays out her central ideas about sexuality and her concerns about the direction of US queer theory. Sedgwick lived for more than a dozen years with a diagnosis of terminal cancer; its implications informed her later writing and thinking, as well as her spiritual and artistic practices. In the book’s final and most personal essay, she reflects on the realization of her impending death. Featuring thirty-seven color images of her art, The Weather in Proust offers a comprehensive view of Sedgwick’s later work, underscoring its diversity and coherence.
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At the time of her death in after a long battle with cancer, Eve Sedgwick had been working on a book on affect and Proust, and on the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. This volume, edited by Jonathan Goldberg, brings together a collection of her last work.
Les mer
Editor's Introduction xiii The Weather in Proust 1 Cavafy, Proust, and the Queer Little Gods 42 Making Things, Practicing Emptiness 69 Melanie Klein and the Difference Affect Makes 123 Affect Theory and Theory of Mind 144 Anality: News from the Front 166 Making Gay Meanings 183 Thinking through Queer Theory 190 Reality and Realization 206 Figure Credits 217 Index 219
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“The Weather in Proust is not just a random final collection of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s essays. It is a frank and flowing analysis of the conflict of pleasure and destruction that shapes our attachment to life; it is an account of the deities that artists invent to embody these dramatic life forces; and, perhaps above all, it is what she calls a ‘fantasy book,’ a stimulus to follow out affect beyond the conventions of thought. Like the artists and psychoanalysts whom Sedgwick seeks out, this work provides a ‘calm voice, so contagious and easy to internalize’ that ‘a new mental faculty’ emerges: through crystalline prose, clear-sighted formulations, and an unsurpassed aesthetic patience, Sedgwick’s engagement with sexuality, politics, and reading closely constitute a sublime teaching.”—Lauren Berlant, author of Cruel Optimism
Les mer
At the time of her death after a long battle with cancer, Eve Sedgwick had been working on a book on affect and Proust, and on the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. This volume, edited by her friend and fellow-Series Q editor, Jonathan Goldberg, brings together a collection of her last work done since our publication of TOUCHING FEELING. In addition to her thoughts on affect, mind, Proust, and Klein, Sedgwick writes about Buddhism, her own artwork, and also looks back at her contributions to queer theory. Filled with luminous insight and Eve's singular prose, this will be the last book in Series Q.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780822351580
Publisert
2011-12-20
Utgiver
Vendor
Duke University Press
Vekt
517 gr
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet

Biographical note

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950–2009) was Distinguished Professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Epistemology of the Closet, Between Men, and A Dialogue on Love. Her books Touching Feeling; Tendencies; Fat Art, Thin Art; Novel Gazing; Gary in Your Pocket; and Shame and Its Sisters (co-edited with Adam Frank), are all also published by Duke University Press.

Jonathan Goldberg is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English and Director of the Studies in Sexualities Program at Emory University. He is the author, most recently, of The Seeds of Things.