The article provides a close reading of the video Sometimes you fight for the world, sometimes you fight for yourself, dir. by Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz (2004, 5’). It reads the video as promoting what it calls a ‘queer politics of paradox’, that is, a politics that acknowledges desire as a constitutive moment of the political and at the same time challenges the political via a queer understanding of desire in order to make room for the political articulation of the Other. The article argues that a reworking of the political — one that aims at de-centring its hegemonic dynamic and creating space for Otherness — becomes possible if one invites paradox as a specific, anti-identitarian, and agonistic mode of tension to function as a constitutive moment of desire and of the political.
Keywords: Boudry, Pauline; Lorenz, Renate; paradox; politics; queer theory; tension; video
Title
Desiring Tension
Subtitle
Towards a Queer Politics of Paradox
Author(s)
Antke Engel
Identifier
Description
The article provides a close reading of the video Sometimes you fight for the world, sometimes you fight for yourself, dir. by Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz (2004, 5’). It reads the video as promoting what it calls a ‘queer politics of paradox’, that is, a politics that acknowledges desire as a constitutive moment of the political and at the same time challenges the political via a queer understanding of desire in order to make room for the political articulation of the Other. The article argues that a reworking of the political — one that aims at de-centring its hegemonic dynamic and creating space for Otherness — becomes possible if one invites paradox as a specific, anti-identitarian, and agonistic mode of tension to function as a constitutive moment of desire and of the political.
Is Part Of
Place
Vienna
Publisher
Turia + Kant
Date
2010
Subject
Boudry, Pauline
Lorenz, Renate
paradox
politics
queer theory
tension
video
Rights
© by the author(s)
This version is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Bibliographic Citation
Antke Engel, ‘Desiring Tension: Towards a Queer Politics of Paradox’, in Tension/​Spannung, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 1 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2010), pp. 227–50 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-01_12>
Language
en-GB
page start
227
page end
250
Source
Tension/​Spannung, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 1 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2010), pp. 227–50
Format
application/pdf

References

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Cite as: Antke Engel, ‘Desiring Tension: Towards a Queer Politics of Paradox’, in Tension/​Spannung, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 1 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2010), pp. 227–50 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-01_12>