Liminal periods in politics often serve as points in time when traditional methods and principles organizing society are disrupted. These periods of interregnum may not always result in complete social upheaval, but they do open the space to imagine social and political change in diverse forms. In Queering the Enlightenment: kinship and gender in the literature of eighteenth-century France, Tracy Rutler uncovers how numerous canonical authors of the 1730s and 40s were imagining radically different ways of organizing the masses during the early years of Louis XV's reign. Through studies of the literature of Antoine Francois Prevost, Claude Crebillon, Pierre de Marivaux, and Francoise de Graffigny among others, Rutler demonstrates how the heteronormative bourgeois family's rise to dominance in late-eighteenth-century France had long been contested within the fictional worlds of many French authors. The utopian impulses guiding the fiction studied in this book distinguish these authors as some of the most brilliant political theorists of the day. Enlightenment, for these authors, means reorienting one's relation to power by reorganizing their most intimate relations. Using a practice of reading queerly, Rutler shows how these works illuminate the unparalleled potential of queer forms of kinship to dismantle the patriarchy and help us imagine what might eventually take its place.

About the Author
Tracy Rutler is Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies at Pennsylvania State University. She is the co-creator of the Legacies of the Enlightenment project, and author of numerous articles on 18th-century French literature and theory. She specializes in queer theory, psychoanalysis, and disability studies.

Reviews

'Combining psychoanalysis and structuralism with political theory, Rutler offers a different way to read canonical eighteenth-century texts by focusing on narrative substitutions for heteronormative familial relations. The interpretations of the texts are not necessarily new ones, but the journey to get to them is... [Queering the Enlightenment] is a fascinating and valuable contribution to the field.' Antoinette Sol, L'Esprit Createur

'One of the many merits of this excellent study is Rutler's demonstration that fiction thinks politically: these texts, even when not explicitly political, create a world in which sexuality, kinship, and desire play out in non-normative ways, permitting writers and their readers to test out and vicariously experience important political problems beyond the confines of a patriarchal framework... Rutler's exciting and innovative study speaks to enduring and contemporary concerns, and will undoubtedly be read, enjoyed, and discussed by students and scholars alike.' Thomas Wynn, French Studies

Book Information
ISBN 9781800859807
Author Tracy Rutler
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint Voltaire Foundation
Publisher Liverpool University Press