Abstract

I attempt to develop a theory of domination. Such a theory must explain those modes of subjectification currently being deployed against the self. These forms of domination/subjectification constitute the homosexual, govern the self, and produce the subject. Yet such a theory must also outline the boundaries of otherness in an attempt to suggest possible sites of resistance and to encourage certain emancipatory interests, recognizing, however, that these tendencies may very well be conscripted from the moment of their inception into the service of domination. I discourse, and therefore I engage in the dialectic of emancipation and domination. ;The theory which is developed in response to the problem of subjectification is fundamentally genealogical. It is itself a strategic interference with the hegemonic discourse on homosexuality, subjectivity and social order. It attempts to deny the terms of that discourse, supplant its interests, and bring an end to its sacrifice and systematic victimization of the homosexual. It is both gay science, and gay revenge. Methodologically, the theory emerges primarily as a synthesis of the works of Michel Foucault and Rene Girard. It draws on Foucault for its notions of subjectification and power relations, while exploiting a leftist revision of Girard's ontogenetic morphogenetic in order to derive a notion of sacrificial and symbolic systems, as well as an evolving technology of legitimating social order. ;A variety of discursive forms are analyzed. The theory is applied to proscriptive, experiencial, structural, and literary discourses in order to illustrate the uniformity and pervasiveness of the strategies deployed against the subject. ;The only unambiguous conclusion which emerges is that everything is ambiguous. Every discourse, including the dissertation itself, is at once a vehicle for power and a point of resistance to it. Every discourse is engaged at the level of its very existence in a fundamental struggle: the dialectic of enlightenment. It must struggle to define itself as either emancipatory or as a form of domination, but never entirely succeeds in becoming either