Queer Events

"Queer Events" studies the representations of queer subjectivities during the Spanish Transition era (1960s to 1990s), drawing on some of the most influential critical theorists and philosophers of our times (Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, and Alain Badiou). The book focuses on well-known Spanish authors and film-makers (Terenci Moix and Vicente Aranda) as well as on others who have merited far less critical attention so far (including Antonio Roig, Alberto Cardin, and the directors of the short-lived avant-garde film movement known as 'Escuela de Barcelona').

ISBN 1846314674   DEWEY edition DC22 ISBN13 9781846314674 (What's this?)   Pages 256 Publisher Liverpool University Press   Published in Liverpool Imprint Liverpool University Press   Series title Contemporary Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures Format Hardback   Height (mm) 234 Publication date 01 Mar 2010   Width (mm) 156 DEWEY 860.9353   Academic level Postgraduate

Preface page Acknowledgements List of Film Stills Introduction Queer Events: Locating the Universal in the Spanish Transition 1. Of Rats and Men: The Homosexual's 'Becoming-Animal' in Antonio Roig's Autobiographical Trilogy 2. Antigone in Hyde Park: Homosexuality and the Ethics of the Event in Antonio Roig's Autobiographical Trilogy 3. How Does One Escape One's Own Simulacrum? Time, Repetition and the 'Asceticism' of Being in Terenci Moix's Autobiography 4. Deleuze no es unicamente severo: Time and Memory in the Films of the Escola de Barcelona 5. Saint Cardin: Sacredness, 'Sinthomosexuality' and the (Non-)Place of the Queer in the Spain of the Transition Conclusion A Queer 'Passion for the Real' Bibliography Index Contents

This is a challenging, compelling, and very well written book which builds on the author's brilliant Hindsight and the Real in the double sense of taking further a highly significant exploration of representations of (roughly) the self in Spanish culture and of honing already startling skills of exposition of complex philosophical and cultural critical ideas. -- Professor Chris Perriam, University of Manchester Queer Events, David Vilaseca's third book, was published posthumously, after the tragic and untimely death of the author in a traffic accident in London on February 9, 2010. It is in part indebted to Paul Julian Smith, who graciously corrected the proofs. The volume contains an introduction and conclusion that frame the study theoretically and five chapters on the autobiographical writings of Antonio Roig and Terenci Moix, the films of the Escola de Barcelona, and the fictional and non-fictional writings of Alberto Cardin. Vilaseca contends that these works challenge established knowledge and that in the context of the Spanish transition to democracy they are all in some way revolutionary. Although the subject matter is dense and difficult to summarize in the short space of a review, Vilaseca's command of theory and his ability to probe and illuminate the texts he analyzes is impressive. With this book Vilaseca achieved the summit of his scholarly vocation, and he would certainly have continued to produce equally important works in the future. His loss to the fields of lesbian and gay studies, queer theory, and Hispanism will thus be great. Chapter one, "Of Rats and Men: The Homosexual's 'Becoming-Animal' in Antonio Roig's Autobiographical Trilogy," focuses on Roig's three autobiographical volumes: Todos los parques no son un paraiso (Memorias de un sacerdote), Variaciones sobre un tema de Orestes (Diario, 1975-1977), and Vidente en rebeldia: Un proceso en la Iglesia. Vilaseca departs from previous studies to argue that Roig does not replicate dominant Judeo-Christian perceptions of homosexuality but instead is deeply anti-homophobic and, as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari propose in their study of Franz Kafka, manages to subvert the structures of Oedipalization despite the abundance of Oedipal motifs in his writing. According to Vilaseca, Roig undermines the Oedipal paradigm not through his relationships with his mother or sisters but rather his exaggerated libidinal attachment to his father and in particular the parodic excess with which he depicts one particular lover, whom he regards as a father-figure. Vilaseca suggests that Roig seeks precisely to free himself from the Oedipal yoke and, by extension, the patriarchal power from which homophobia derives its authority. Vilaseca describes chapter two, "Antigone in Hyde Park: Homosexuality and the Ethics of the Event in Antonio Roig's Autobiographical Trilogy," as the theoretical centerpiece of his book. Drawing on Alain Badiou's conception of the "event," he argues that Roig's coming-out, as recounted in his autobiographical volumes, marks a foundational break with the established order incommensurable with the situation in which it occurred. As an event it undoes existing systems of knowledge, and through it what was unthinkable suddenly becomes possible. Significant in the context of autobiography is the assertion that the subject of the event does not precede it but rather is induced by the logic or truth (here understood as a subjective truth) of the event itself. What is more, the event changes the situation in which it occurs at the site of what Badiou calls the "central void," the socio-symbolic location of the most marginalized, whose lack of value vis-a-vis the larger group allows them to become the locus of the principle of universality. Vilaseca highlights a passage in Roig's autobiographical writing when he is confronted by a potential blackmailer. In responding to his tormentor, he begins to redefine the coordinates of his situation and ultimately emerg

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