The Lesbian Body without organs: Monique Wittig’s critique of psychoanalysis and the poststructuralist turn

In French thought, the poststructuralist turn that solidified after May '68 is associated with a critique of both structuralism and psychoanalysis, particularly Lacanian theories. While the materialist lesbian novelist and theorist Monique Wittig is rarely considered within the poststructuralist canon, her critique of psychoanalysis overlaps significantly with that of philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Guy Hocquenghem. In this article, I argue that her resistance against the psychoanalytic paradigm is palpable through her experimental novel The Lesbian Body (1973/1975), anticipating her subsequent theoretical critique in "The Straight Mind" (1980). By examining Wittig's rejection of metaphorical language combined with her motifs of bodily dismemberment and lesbian cruising, this article positions The Lesbian Body as a fundamental text within the poststructuralist context of early 1970s France which troubles and nuances its phallocentric concepts.