Reply #5: Kate Millet's Sexual Politics inspired and opened my world.

[roughsatori]

I shop-lifted Sexual Politics when I was in the 6th grade. I was not permitted to take that book from a library - so had to steal it to read. The first book that I had lovingly pilfered, during a lull in the summer of 5th grade, "The Kinsey Report: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male." I was a strange child - precocious to the point of laughable absurdity. Millet's Sexual Politics led me to some of my most beloved authors. The irony that reading Millet on Henry Miller resulted in my reading every word in print of Henry Miller's was lost on me at the time. And Kate led me to DH Lawrence's poetry and essays on poetics which still inspire and spark. Jean Genet was the special gift that Millet presented to me. Millet made me NEED to need to understand Jean Genet - as a way to better know myself. Genet's Journal du voleur (A Thief's Journal) is an incredible melding of fact, fiction, Eros, crime, and reverie. Sedgewick, similarly, inspired you.

Your post regarding Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's passing brought a rush of memories - and a feeling of loss. The obituary you linked to was well written and bitter-sweet. Thanks for taking the time to post the link for the Nation obituary. The comments that people left at the Nation, in response to the obituary, were sickeningly too familiar. Epistemology of the Closet excited more than a few people. Due to Sedwick's work there was a resultant vibrancy in some academic worlds for the importance of aesthetics, psychology, and politics in the development of a Gay identity component. Sedgewick opened-up criticism for those of us who reveled in our own louche, outcast selves. Eve's examination, and blending, of the ideas of Foucault and Melanie Klein was exhilarating. Her ideas felt important and alive.

"Queer Theory" now reads as if from ancient history. In the USA there has been such a swing to the right that Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's work is a sort of memento mori from a lost-time when Progressives were not mocked by self-proclaimed Liberals.

I apologize for this rambling, incoherent post.

Because of your post I will re-read Epistemology of the Closet. Thank you!