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First published in Italian in 1977, Mario Mieli's groundbreaking book is an early landmark of revolutionary queer theory - now available for the first time in a complete and unabridged English translation. Among the most important works ever to address the relationship between homosexuality, homophobia and capitalism, Mieli's essay continues to pose a radical challenge to today's dominant queer theory and politics. With extraordinary prescience, Mieli exposes the efficiency with which capitalism co-opts 'perversions' which are then 'sold both wholesale and retail'. In his view, the liberation of homosexual desire requires the emancipation of sexuality from both patriarchal sex roles and capital. Drawing heavily upon Marx and psychoanalysis to arrive at a dazzlingly original vision, Towards a Gay Communism is a hitherto neglected classic that will be essential reading for all who seek to understand the true meaning of sexual liberation under capitalism today.
List of contents
Foreword: 'I Keep My Treasure in My Arse' by Tim Dean
Introduction by Massimo Prearo
Translator's Preface by Evan Calder Williams
Preface
1. Homosexual Desire is Universal
2. Fire and Brimstone, or How Homosexuals Became Gay
3. Heterosexual Men, or Rather Closet Queens
4. Crime and Punishment
5. A Healthy Mind in a Perverse Body
6. Towards a Gay Communism
7. The End
Appendix A: Unpublished Preface to Homosexuality and Liberation by Mario Mieli (1980)
Appendix B: Translator's additional note from Chapter 1
Index
About the author
Mario Mieli was a leading figure in the Italian gay movement of the 1970s, respected as one of the movement's most profound intellectuals. He committed suicide in 1983 at the age of 30. His work Towards a Gay Communism (Pluto, 2018) was considered a controversial classic of the era.
Massimo Prearo is currently a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Research Centre Politesse of the University of Verona, where he is studying the rise of Italian LGBT activism in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. He is also the Director of the academic electronic journal Genre, Sexualité & Société.
Tim Dean is Professor of English at the University of Illinois. He is the author of numerous books including Porn Archives (Duke University Press, 2014), Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking (University of Chicago Press, 2009), and Beyond Sexuality (University of Chicago Press, 2000).
David Fernbach studied at London School of Economics. His publications include the three-volume edition of Karl Marx's Political Writings (Verso, 2010), and The Spiral Path: A Gay Contribution to Human Survival (1981). His translations include Marx's Capital Volumes Two and Three, and works by Georg Lukacs, Rudolf Bahro, Boris Groys, Nicos Poulantzas, Pierre Bourdieu, Alain Badiou and Jacques Rancière.
Evan Calder Williams is a writer, theorist and artist based in Santa Cruz, California. He is the author of Combined and Uneven Apocalypse (Zero, 2015).
Summary
First publication in English of a groundbreaking book of revolutionary queer theory
