Writing the Orgy provides an innovative, highly persuasive interpretation of eroticism in the Marqui de Sade's writing. Combining literary theory with methodologies borrowed from anthropology, history, and psychoanalysis, the book is a brilliant feminist reading of a text-The Story of Julliete-often characterized as brutally aggressive and pornographic.
"Writing the Orgy is particularly important not merely for recognizing the pertinence of Sade to current issues in feminism, but also for proposing a reading of Sade that suggests the inadequacy of either simple affirmation or repudiation. This is a very fine book that will have an important presence as an example of the possibility of combining considerable sophistication about language with the inflections of cultural studies."-Frances Ferguson, Johns Hopkins University
