Deconstruction of Sex

Jean-Luc Nancy (1940-2021) was Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Strasbourg and the author of numerous books, most recently Sexistence.Irving Goh is President's Assistant Professor of Literature at the National University of Singapore and author of The Reject: Community, Politics, and Religion after the Subject and L’Existence PrÉpositionnelle.Claire Colebrook is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

“Happily, no one will leave this book with an understanding of sex. To the contrary, these trenchant and provocative dialogues challenge any construction of sex that relies on a copular verb. As astutely as Irving Goh places sex in a politicophilosophical framework, just as astutely does Jean-Luc Nancy lay out how sex exceeds it. This results in an exemplary enactment of the becoming-word of sex, ‘leaving in us,’ to quote Nancy, ‘a sort of dizziness and bedazzlement’ by comparison with which ‘understanding’ sex can only seem delusional.” - Lee Edelman, author of (No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive) “In this fascinating dialogue between the renowned continental thinker Jean-Luc Nancy and the critic Irving Goh, the foundational terms of sex are brilliantly deconstructed in ways directly relevant to sensual experience, modalities of affect, intimate co-relationality and the fluid subjects of contemporary gender self-identification. Sexual philosophy, post-Foucault and post-Irigaray, gains a new classic with this indispensable text, topped by the bonus of Claire Colebrook's trenchant afterword on killjoy sex.” - Emily Apter, Silver Professor of French and Comparative Literature, New York University

• Introduction: Sex "Is" Deconstruction / Irving Goh  10. The Deconstruction of Sex: Opening Questions  161. Troubling Thought(s): Sex and Deconstruction  202. On Touching-Sex  353. Who Comes before/after Sex?  534. S/exscription  70Afterword: Sex and the Killjoy / Claire Colebrook  83Acknowledgments  93Notes  95Bibliography  105Index  109