Overview

Western thinking on sexuality has historically affirmed not only a binary division between two sexes, each of which is defined by unique fixed attributes that delineate its essence, but also a privileging of the masculine over the feminine and heteronormative relations over alternatives. By engaging with psychoanalytic theory, phenomenology, feminist and gender theory, and the new materialisms, Gavin Rae shows how this model came under sustained and heterogeneous attack in the twentieth century. Rather than affirm one of these critical trajectories, Rae rethinks the problematic by turning to Walter Benjamin's notion of concepts as constellations to develop an alternative model called sexuality as constellation.

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9781399535106

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Reviews

An innovative, refreshingly nuanced interdisciplinary consideration of sexuality’s philosophical chronicling. Rae’s Questioning Sexuality deftly weaves and delimits psychoanalytic, phenomenological, feminist, and queer approaches to entrenched notions of sexuality, brilliantly reframing sexuality as an indeterminate conceptual nexus illuminating the complexity of identity, politics, ethics, and being itself. -- Stacy Keltner, Kennesaw State University

An innovative, refreshingly nuanced interdisciplinary consideration of sexuality's philosophical chronicling. Rae's Questioning Sexuality deftly weaves and delimits psychoanalytic, phenomenological, feminist, and queer approaches to entrenched notions of sexuality, brilliantly reframing sexuality as an indeterminate conceptual nexus illuminating the complexity of identity, politics, ethics, and being itself.--Stacy Keltner, Kennesaw State University

Author Information

Gavin Rae is Associate Professor (accredited to Professor) in the Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. His research interests lie in nineteenth and twentieth century European philosophy, where he works at the intersection of socio-political philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, ontology, and ethics. Besides over sixty published articles and book chapters, he is the author of eight monographs, the most recent of which are The Politics of Reason: A Postfoundational Approach (Edinburgh University Press, 2026), Questioning Sexuality: From Psychoanalysis to Gender Theory and Beyond (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), and Poststructuralist Agency: The Subject in Twentieth Century Theory (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). He has also co-edited six volumes, the most recent of which are Subjective Agency and Poststructuralism (Routledge, 2025—with Cillian Ó Fathaigh), Philosophy across Borders (Routledge, 2025—with Emma Ingala), and Historical Traces and Future Pathways of Poststructuralism: Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics (Routledge, 2021—with Emma Ingala).

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