‘The claim ‘I’m straight’ is the psychosexual analogue of ‘The check is in the mail’: if you need to say it, your credit or creditability is already in doubt.’ So begins Paul Morrison’s dazzling polemic, which takes as its point of departure Foucault’s famous remark that sex is ‘the explanation for everything.’
Combining psychoanalytic, literary, and queer theory, The Explanation for Everything seeks to account for the explanatory power attributed to homosexuality, and its relationship to compulsory heterosexuality. In the process, Morrison presents a scathing indictment of psychoanalysis and its impact on the study of sexuality. In bold but graceful leaps, Morrison applies his critique to a diversity of examples: subjectivity in Oscar Wilde, the cultural construction and reception of AIDS, the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, the practice of bodybuilding, and the contemporary reception of the sexual politics of fascism.
Analytical, witty and astute, The Explanation for Everything will challenge and amuse, establishing Paul Morrison as one of our most exciting cultural critics.
About the author
Paul Morrison is Associate Professor of English at Brandeis University. He is the author of The Poetics of Fascism: Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and Paul de Man.
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