> In any event, Adorno's greatness, if you can call it that,
does not lie as a direct contributer to queer theory
(although Butler, Hewitt, and others all acknowledge Adorno
as a source of inspiration) but as a modernist... someone
who was content to situate the antagonisms of enlightenment
in a radical and unresolved tension).<
and going with the latter part, isn't this what makes adorno so attractive for the development of queer theory, as a way of thinking about sexuality as that which is both foreclosed by identity and exceeds it? aside from hewitt and butler, thomas pepper, for instance, does talk specifically about adorno in relation to the issues of love, sexuality, abandonment. and he notes that the word in that infamous phrase is 'totality', not 'totalitarianism'. and, since totality does not mean an immediate fascism for adorno, but rather the configuration of a given dialectic, then it would seem that the sense is much closer to that offered by the term homosociality and indeed by that of queer theory as a critique of both masculinity and femininity as priveliged codes within gay and lesbian politics. i have serious doubts whether these are perticularly interesting positions (either queer theory or the notion of the homosocial), but they are a significant part of the politics and theorisation of sexuality, and none of those seem to have provoked the accusation of homophobia.
Angela _________