Lorenzo Bernini

Queer Theories

From Mario Mieli to the antisocial turn

Room 102, Università degli Studi di Milano

Via Festa del Perdono 7

J. Henry Fair, from Industrial Scars (2016) series.

Abstract

What are queer theories? How do they think about sexuality? How do they relate to ‘gender theory’? Each question generates others, in a fractal progression. The seminar will proceed by problematising, suggesting avenues of investigation, by hypothesising genealogies. The aim will not be to resolve the question of the relationship between the sexual subject and political power in a linear argument but to leave it open in its plurality of dimensions. Nor will the aim be to suppress controversy. Instead, it will present a particularly uncomfortable area of critical theory, to explain why it continues to provoke conflict in movements, in the public sphere, and in universities.

Bio

Lorenzo Bernini is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Verona, where he directs the research centre PoliTeSse – Politics and Theories of Sexuality. His interests range from classical political philosophy of modernity and 20th century French thought to theories of radical democracy, critical theories of ‘race’ and queer theories.