Guy Hocquenghem (1946 – 28 August 1988) was born in the suburbs of Paris and was educated at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. His participation in the
May 1968 student rebellion in France formed his allegiance to the Communist Party, which later expelled him because of his homosexuality. He
taught philosophy at the University of Vincennes-Saint Denis, Paris and was the author of numerous novels and works of theory. He
was the staff writer for the French publication, Libération. Hocquenghem was the first
gay man to be a member of the Front Homosexuel d'Action
Révolutionnaire (FHAR), originally formed by Lesbian separatists who split from the Mouvement
Homophile de France in 1971. He wrote and produced a documentary film about gay history, Race d'Ep! Un siècle d'image
de l'homosexualité[1].
Hocquenghem died of an AIDS-related illness in 1988.
Though Hocquenghem had a significant impact on leftist thinking in France, his reputation has failed to grow to international
prominence. Only the first of his theoretical tracts, Homosexual Desire and his first novel, L'amour en relief have
been translated into English, and though Race d'Ep! has been released in America as The Homosexual Century, like
Hocquenghem, it is virtually unknown.
Career
Guy Hocquenghem's Homosexual Desire (1972, English translation 1978) may be the first work of Queer Theory. Drawing on the theoretical work of Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari, Hocquenghem critiqued the influential models of the psyche and sexual
desire derived from Lacan and Freud. The author
also addressed the relation of capitalism to sexualities, the dynamics of desire, and the
political effects of gay group-identities.
Jeffrey Weeks' 1978 preface to the first English language translation of Homosexual
Desire is extremely helpful in situating the essay in relation to the various, mostly French, theories of subjectiviey and
desire surrounding and influencing Hocquenghem's thought.
Republished in French, 2000.
L'Après-Mai des faunes (1974) is the second and untranslated queer-theoretical text.
Co-ire, album systématique de l'enfance (Co-anger: systematic album of childhood) (1976) examines childhood sexuality
from a Marxist perspective. Written with annother professor, René Schérer. It is rumored that Schérer and Hocquenghem began an
affair in 1959, when the later was 15: see historical pederastic
couples.
Le dérive homosexuelle (1977) is the third and yet to be translated queer-theoretical text.
La Beauté du métis (1979) analyzed French anti-Arab feeling and homophobia.
L'amour en relief (1982) us Hocquenghem's first and most famous novel. A blind Tunisian boy explores French society and
discovers the ways in which pleasure can form a resistance to totalitarianism. The novel gives context to homosexual desire as a
resistance to white supremacy and racism.
La Colére d'agneau (The Wrath of the Lamb) (1985) is an experiment in millenarian and apocoliptic narrative taking
St. John the Evangelist as its subject.
L'âme atomique (The Atomic Heart) (1986) was written partly as a response to his deteriorating health, and again in
collaboration with Schére, this work espouses a philosophy composed of dandyism, gnosticism, and epicureanism.
Letter open to those which passed from the Mao collar to the Rotary drill, Marseilles, Agone (1986) was republished in
2003 with a foreword by Serge Halimi ISBN 2-7489-0005-7
Eve (1987) is a narrative which narrative carefully combines the story of Genesis with
the description of the changes in the body from AIDS related symptoms and written as Hocquenghem's
own body deteriorated.
Vayages et adventures extraordinaires du Frère Angelo (1988) explores the mind of an Italian monk accompanying the
conquistadors to the New World.
Works
- Homosexual Desire (1972, English translation 1978)
- L'Après-Mai des faunes (1974)
- Co-ire, album systématique de l'enfance (Co-anger: systematic album of childhood) (1976)
- Le dérive homosexuelle (1977)
- La Beauté du métis (1979)
- The Gay travels: guide and glance homosexual over the large metropolises (1980)
- L'amour en relief (1982)
- La Colére d'agneau (The Wrath of the Lamb) (1985)
- L'âme atomique (The Atomic Heart) (1986)
- Letter open to those which passed from the Mao collar to the Rotary drill, Marseilles, Agone (1986)
- Eve (1987)
- Vayages et adventures extraordinaires du Frère Angelo (1988)
- The amphitheatre of the dead ones: anticipated memories (1994)
Works on Hocquenghem
Bill Marshall. Guy Hocquenghem, Gay Beyond Identity. Duke University Press, 1996
References
External links
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