IGNACIO DARNAUDE: Don't say gay — The erasure of queerns art - WEHOville

Contents:

• LEO BERSANI, LERARY CRIC AND THEORIST ON GAY LIFE, DI AT 90
• IGNACIO DARNAUDE: DON’T SAY GAY — THE ERASURE OF QUEERNS ART
• LET'S NOT ASSIGN GAY ARTISTS TO THE OBUARY CLOSET

LEO BERSANI, LERARY CRIC AND THEORIST ON GAY LIFE, DI AT 90

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTHe had a long reer as a scholar of French lerature, but he was bt known for his wrgs on gay inty at the height of the AIDS Peppel/ICI BerlLeo Bersani, who over a 60-year reer as a scholar of morn French lerature had a profound fluence on art and lerary cricism, and who later played a central role bat about gay and queer inty at the height of the AIDS crisis, died on Feb. Bersani had entered the facily earlier this month after a brief hospalizatn wh Bersani was bt known for his 1987 say “Is the Rectum a Grave?, ” a nse, polemil crique of the tenncy among some gay activists to rpond to AIDS by downplayg their sexualy and emphasizg the need to replite bourgeois homosexualy was not the mirror image of heterosexualy, he argued, but somethg radilly different, lackg many of the patriarchal equali that he said fed straight life. “Far om apologizg for their promiscuy as a failure to mata a lovg relatnship, ” he wrote, “gay men should ceaselsly lament the practil necsy, now, of such relatns, should rist beg drawn to mimickg the unrelentg warfare between men and women.

”He followed nearly a later, wh “Homos” (1995), a book-length crique of the emergg field of queer theory, and particular of s leadg figure, Judh Bersani argued that their pictn of gay inty as socially nstcted and of aspects of gay culture as performative and parodic of straight life, Dr. Butler and others threatened to remove those quali that ma male homosexualy salient and even potentially liberatg. “He thought that the whole pot of beg a homosexual man is that you dispted the experience of posssn, ownership, fily, nsistency, safety, and you allowed sexualy to be what really is, which is disptive, disorientg, shatterg, lim-vlatg and boundary-breakg.

IGNACIO DARNAUDE: DON’T SAY GAY — THE ERASURE OF QUEERNS ART

Cldia Peppel/ICI BerlThough many wrers praised “Homos” — Richard Canng, wrg The New Statman and Society, lled a “tone gay studi” — others were more Peck, wrg The Village Voice, took Dr.

LET'S NOT ASSIGN GAY ARTISTS TO THE OBUARY CLOSET

Bersani to task for all but ignorg the reali of the AIDS crisis and the chang gay men need to make light of , while Denis Donoghue, wrg The New York Tim, warned that “his program ‘Homos’ seems to me a regrsn to apartheid, and one enforced this time round by homosexuals. Bersani’s lerary cricism and his work on gay inty, there are them nng through both. He found gay life a livg stance of the sort of “swerve” and athetic ivoly that he lled for art and lerature; for example, he praised gay bath ho for the sual sexual enunters they enuraged.

" More about Clay RisenA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn D, Page 6 of the New York edn wh the headle: Leo Bersani, 90, Scholar of French Lerature, Author and Theorist on Gay Life. His offhand, equently off-lor jok — “I like the art world; there are a lot of gay people and attractive women wh low-cut drs” — appeared to rerce the pot.

“Inty polics tribalized the art unrground and broke up the dissonant tone of — a tribe of women, a tribe of Black people, a tribe of gay people, ” he said. Sewell preferred the term “queer” to gay, although he claimed he had never formally “e out” about his sexualy. Pieters spoke an emotnal Kisby for The New York TimPublished July 19, 2023Updated July 21, 2023In 1985, when fear and homophobia were still drivg much of the nversatn surroundg AIDS, the Rev.