The Reification of Desire
Toward a Queer Marxism
Kevin Floyd
The Reification of Desire takes two critical perspectives rarely analyzed together—formative arguments for Marxism and those that have been the basis for queer theory—and productively scrutinizes these ideas both with and against each other to put forth a new theoretical connection between Marxism and queer studies.
The Reification of Desire makes surprising and important connections between Marxism and queer theory, and Kevin Floyd’s analyses are to be commended for their ability to move skillfully from abstract theory to the most detailed histories of socio-economic dynamics and masculine culture.
Eric Clarke, University of Pittsburgh
The Reification of Desire takes two critical perspectives rarely analyzed together—formative arguments for Marxism and those that have been the basis for queer theory—and productively scrutinizes these ideas both with and against each other to put forth a new theoretical connection between Marxism and queer studies.
Kevin Floyd brings queer critique to bear on the Marxian categories of reification and totality and considers the dialectic that frames the work of Georg Lukács, Herbert Marcuse, and Fredric Jameson. Reading the work of these theorists together with influential queer work by such figures as Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, and alongside reconsiderations of such texts as The Sun Also Rises and Midnight Cowboy, Floyd reformulates these two central categories that have been inseparable from a key strand of Marxist thought and have marked both its explanatory power and its limitations. Floyd theorizes a dissociation of sexuality from gender at the beginning of the twentieth century in terms of reification to claim that this dissociation is one aspect of a larger dynamic of social reification enforced by capitalism.
Developing a queer examination of reification and totality, Floyd ultimately argues that the insights of queer theory require a fundamental rethinking of both.
$25.00 paper ISBN 978-0-8166-4396-7
$75.00 cloth ISBN 978-0-8166-4395-0
304 pages, 4 b&w photos, 6 x 9, 2009
Kevin Floyd is associate professor of English at Kent State University.
The Reification of Desire makes surprising and important connections between Marxism and queer theory, and Kevin Floyd’s analyses are to be commended for their ability to move skillfully from abstract theory to the most detailed histories of socio-economic dynamics and masculine culture.
Eric Clarke, University of Pittsburgh
A rich, rigorous, and useful book.
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Floyd’s analysis is both provocative and rich, and his original narratives offer some startling new perspectives.
Culture Machine
The tome’s clearly ambitious theoretical focus does not hinder its attempt to remain at the level of ‘real-world’ phenomena.
Science & Society
Insightful and thought-provoking.
Mediations
Floyd’s application of the concept of reification to sexuality is brilliant. Trailblazing work.
Against the Current
Ambitious and careful. Floyd has energized the concept of reification.
Criticism
In addition to having theoretical sophistication and range, Floyd’s writing is also witty. Do not miss.
H-Net
The Reification of Desire should be a required book in any library collection that supports research in the fields of queer theory, gender studies, cultural studies, and Marxist-based literary theory. Floyd’s clear style and efficient prose make the book ideal for advanced undergraduate courses and graduate seminars that examine the relationship between sexuality and culture, especially in an American context. As his first published monograph, The Reification of Desire establishes Kevin Floyd as an innovative voice in philosophical and cultural debates on sexuality and desire.
Gender Forum