“Machines & Other Guts”: Sade, Piva and Queer Antidualism

Abstract

It is a mark of much of the 20th century thinking, both in literature and philosophy, the reception of the work of the Marquis de Sade. In fact, already in the 18th century Sade had formulated a series of questions and proposed certain ways of thinking whose relevance would only be fully incorporated in contemporary thought. In this sense, the work of the Marquis de Sade and the literature and philosophy of the twentieth century can clarify each other. In this text, we want to show the reception of a specific theme - antidualism - in two instances: the surrealist poetry of Roberto Piva and the queer thought of authors such as Paul Preciado. More specifically, it is about analyzing how Sade was received - directly or indirectly - both in literature and philosophy, by authors whose projects consisted in denouncing the exclusionary aspects or even potential authoritarianism in dualistic world views. Thus, in addition to commenting and elucidating aspects of the work of Sade, of Roberto Piva and of Paul Preciado, we sought to show aspects of a passage in the history of contemporary philosophy: the incorporation of the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade in the formulation of a thought that sees in the sexed body and in philosophical-literary reflection on human sexuality a possibility of renewal of the founding aspects of a cultural experience that finds, in the 20th century, significant political impasses.