Sergevik Queer Theory Research

Queer theory gained its position in the Western culture in 1990s and has been the most important trend of thought towards the end of 20th century.Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is one of the most important queer theorist in this trend,no queer theory books can be written without mentioning her name,but a theorist of such significance is rarely under discussion in China.I believe it’s of great importance to introduce her queer theory in our country for the future development of the queer theory and the analysis of the cultural phenomenon occurring in our society.The approach to study in this essay is to discuss Sedgwick’s queer theory and articulate her turn away from desire to feeling based on her five monographs and the papers about her home and abroad.My essay consists of following three parts:The first chapter is aimed to introduce Sedgwick’s important monographs,her academic career and contribution to the queer theory.And the second chapter discussed Sedgwick’s epistemology of the closet which is of great importance in the early period of her academic career and in the field of queer theory.The epistemology of the closet discusses the incoherence of the homo/heterosexual definition in modern western culture and breaks the dualistic choice between coming out and the closeted.The third chapter discusses Sedgwick’s turn away from desire to feeling in the last period of her academic career inspired by Melaine Klein and Silvan Tomkins in two parts:queer performativity and affect theory.With the help of the affect theory,Sedgwick reflected on the paranoid predicament in which most of the modern theory and especially queer theory got struck and proposed the concept of reparative reading as the new mode of criticism.In the epilogue,the realistic meaning of Sedgwick’s theory in China and its limitation was stated in brief calling for further discussion concerning Sedgwick.Sedgwick’s theory is far from perfection and has its own limitation such as the different social background if applied to our society.But in past thirty years it has inspired a generation of gay activists,queer theorists,literary critics and common readers in western society,and I believe it can also inspire us not only in academic field but also in daily life.