Review: The Reification of Desire by Kevin Floyd

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the review: 

Kevin Floyd begins The Reification of Desire at an impasse between Marxist and queer theory on a snowy night in New England when he missed Judith Butler’s appearance at a Rethinking Marxism conference. From there Floyd attempts a reconciliation between Marxism and queer theory via historicizing arguments that scrutinize social, economic, and political practices and norms in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Floyd’s path “toward a queer Marxism” traces economic and sexual regulation over the last one hundred years in the United States. The path is marked by vivid examples and theoretical complexity—for example, a fishing scene from The Sun Also Rises appears as an intersection of failed masculinity and deskilled labor, and gay pictorials from the 1950s and 1960s serve as evidence for an unregulated, covert economy of desire. Floyd’s combination of textual analysis with philosophical reflection promises to make the book a new classic in queer studies.