Synopses & Reviews
The Weather in Proust gathers pieces written by the eminent critic and theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in the last decade of her life, as she worked toward a book on Proust. This book takes its title from the first essay, a startlingly original interpretation of Proust. By way of Neoplatonism, Buddhism, and the work of Melanie Klein, Sedgwick establishes the sense of refreshment and surprise that the author of the Recherche affords his readers. Proust also figures in pieces on the poetry of C. P. Cavafy, object relations, affect theory, and Sedgwickandrsquo;s textile art practices. More explicitly connected to her role as a pioneering queer theorist are an exuberant attack against reactionary refusals of the work of Guy Hocquenghem and talks in which she lays out her central ideas about sexuality and her concerns about the direction of US queer theory. Sedgwick lived for more than a dozen years with a diagnosis of terminal cancer; its implications informed her later writing and thinking, as well as her spiritual and artistic practices. In the bookandrsquo;s final and most personal essay, she reflects on the realization of her impending death. Featuring thirty-seven color images of her art, The Weather in Proust offers a comprehensive view of Sedgwickandrsquo;s later work, underscoring its diversity and coherence.
Review
andldquo;The Weather in Proust is not just a random final collection of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwickandrsquo;s essays. It is a frank and flowing analysis of the conflict of pleasure and destruction that shapes our attachment to life; it is an account of the deities that artists invent to embody these dramatic life forces; and, perhaps above all, it is what she calls a andlsquo;fantasy book,andrsquo; a stimulus to follow out affect beyond the conventions of thought. Like the artists and psychoanalysts whom Sedgwick seeks out, this work provides a andlsquo;calm voice, so contagious and easy to internalizeandrsquo; that andlsquo;a new mental facultyandrsquo; emerges: through crystalline prose, clear-sighted formulations, and an unsurpassed aesthetic patience, Sedgwickandrsquo;s engagement with sexuality, politics, and reading closely constitute a sublime teaching.andrdquo;andmdash;Lauren Berlant, author of Cruel Optimism
Review
andldquo;With breathtaking range and brilliance, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick once again, and in myriad ways, reminds us of the complex relationality of affective life. These extraordinary essays give life to her claim that something about queer is inextinguishable.andrdquo;andmdash;Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Review
andldquo;This posthumous collection of Sedgwickandrsquo;s essays presents readers with a glittering kaleidoscope of andlsquo;capacious concerns.andrsquo; Sedgwick, a pioneer in queer studies, shines as she contemplates Proust, textile art, and mortality in language that is challenging and exhilarating. . . . Engaging with Sedgwick will fill readers will wonder.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;For a writer whose prose (and thought) could often be astoundingly dense, circuitous, and lovingly (if sometimes frustratingly) devoted to articulating the farthest reaches of complexity, the overall effect of The Weather in Proust is one of great clarification and distillation. Indeed, for those unfamiliar with Sedgwickandrsquo;s work, I would recommend starting with The Weather in Proust and moving backward from there, as the volume offers an enjoyably compressed, coherent, and retrospective portrait of Sedgwickandrsquo;s principal preoccupations.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Like all of [Sedgwickandrsquo;s] writing, The Weather in Proust both contributes to theory and challenges what we actually mean when we theorize, or read and write theory. . . . The Weather in Proust ravishes in the flexibility of its theoretical energies, in essays on topics as surfacially different as Proustian weather, the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy, Japanese textile practice, anality, and autism. . . . The delight of discovering Sedgwickandrsquo;s own findings arises in part because the voice in these essays feels so lucidly sincere. Her writing feels true, a word which aptly comes from an Old English word meaning andldquo;loyal;andrdquo; her writing feels loyal, both to itself and its readers.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This selection of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwickandrsquo;s unpublished papers and talks voers a wide range, from lively fragments of a projected book on Proust, to Cafavy, psychoanalysis, and Buddhism. The illuminate Segwickandrsquo;s attempt to establish an epistemology of the individual subject. . . . Sedgwickandrsquo;s wit is tonic. . . .andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The Weather in Proust embodies Eve Kosofsky Sedgwickandrsquo;s seemingly simple yet revolutionary claim that andlsquo;people are different.andrsquo; It is grounded in her commitment to a critical taxonomy that refuses binarisms, that works in the space between two and infinity, whether it be of sexualities or affects, andlsquo;kinds of people,andrsquo; or even andlsquo;little gods,andrsquo; a practice she brilliantly argues that Marcel Proustandrsquo;s writing, even its discussion of the weather, and C. P. Cavafyandrsquo;s invocation of the periperformative, epitomize.andrdquo;
Review
“To read the essays collected in Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s
The Weather in Proust, lovingly and lucidly edited by Jonathan Goldberg, is to hear their author’s inimitable voice again, and while buoyed up by her preternatural
intelligence and stylistic virtuosity, to feel anew the pain of her loss.” - Joseph Litvak, Modernism/Modernity
Review
andldquo;I was deeply moved by the book. It has much to offer to Proust scholars, scholars of queer studies, scholars (and skeptics) of psychoanalysis, and anyone concerned with how intellectual work might be made meaningfully continuous with the creative, political, and pedagogical practices of everyday life. Upon finishing the volume, I felt grief at the loss of this exceptionally gifted theorist, mixed with gratitude for the stunning body of work that Eve Sedgwick has left usandmdash;including The Weather in Proust.andrdquo;and#160;
Review
andldquo;If Sedgwick found in emptiness a certain energy, a kind of andlsquo;arising,andrsquo; then those of us who remain in the empty space she has left behind might be encouraged to take up The Weather in Proust when her absence touches us most acutely, to breathe in its atmosphere and bask in the warm climate of its thought.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;It is an adventure and a privilege to read The Weather in Proust, but these readerly experiences are alloyed with a strong sense of sadness that this carefully edited and beautifully produced volume should be posthumous. . . . We might think of these collected pieces as the characteristically vibrant and multifarious ways in which Sedgwick came to the andlsquo;realisationandrsquo; of her mortality.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Selections from Sedgwick's unpublished work, continuing her interest in affect theory, queer theory, Proust, her art and weavings, and her thoughts on Buddhism as she approached the end of her life.
Synopsis
At the time of her death in after a long battle with cancer, Eve Sedgwick had been working on a book on affect and Proust, and on the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. This volume, edited by Jonathan Goldberg, brings together a collection of her last work.
Synopsis
At the time of her death after a long battle with cancer, Eve Sedgwick had been working on a book on affect and Proust, and on the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. This volume, edited by her friend and fellow-Series Q editor, Jonathan Goldberg, brings together a collection of her last work done since our publication of Touching Feeling. In addition to her thoughts on affect, mind, Proust, and Klein, Sedgwick writes about Buddhism, her own artwork, and also looks back at her contributions to queer theory. Filled with luminous insight and Eve’s singular prose, this will be the last book in Series Q.
About the Author
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950andndash;2009) was Distinguished Professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Epistemology of the Closet, Between Men, and A Dialogue on Love. Her books Touching Feeling; Tendencies; Fat Art, Thin Art; Novel Gazing; Gary in Your Pocket; and Shame and Its Sisters (co-edited with Adam Frank), are all also published by Duke University Press.
Jonathan Goldberg is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English and Director of the Studies in Sexualities Program at Emory University. He is the author, most recently, of The Seeds of Things.
Table of Contents
Editor's Introduction xiii
The Weather in Proust 1
Cavafy, Proust, and the Queer Little Gods 42
Making Things, Practicing Emptiness 69
Melanie Klein and the Difference Affect Makes 123
Affect Theory and Theory of Mind 144
Anality: News from the Front 166
Making Gay Meanings 183
Thinking through Queer Theory 190
Reality and Realization 206
Figure Credits 217
Index 219