In 1973, French writer, theorist, and activist Monique Wittig published The Lesbian Body, a genre- and gender-breaking work of theory-fiction that challenged the order of heterosexuality in literature. Wittig celebrates sites of pleasure and lesbian eros through expressions of joy, violence, and tenderness, and her transfiguration of gender and its paradigms transformed French vocabulary by lesbianizing grammar and myths.

Its appearance in English in 1975 made quite an impression as well. “For me,” Judith Butler would confess, “Wittig opened up a sense of the world that had been unimaginable. She tore us apart.”

The writers Alice Centamore and Matvei Yankelevich discovered that the translation didn’t satisfy Wittig, and, following her notes in the margins, they revised it to foreground her typographic innovations and render in English her revisionist approach to language.

For this event, fifty years after its first appearance in English, Alice and Matvei bring together a range of artists who perform and respond to their favorite passages in the book. The artists Sharon Hayes, Carolyn Lazard, and A.L. Steiner, along with the playwright Jerry Lieblich and the art historian Ksenia M. Soboleva collectively reflect on the book’s utopian project from today’s vantage.

As Jack Halberstam promises, “you will never think straight again.”

The Lesbian Body, with a new introduction by Paul B. Preciado, is published by Winter Editions.

This event is made possible thanks to support from the Jan Michalski Foundation.