Nazioaren hondarrak: euskal literatura garaikidearen historia postnazional baterako hastapenak

Joseba Gabilondo

(Joseba Gabilondo's way)

In order to emphasize the importance of the crisis of the state and the serious repercussions of not thinking such a crisis in its historical complexity, Joseba Gabilondo, in his book, rethinks the problems of sovereignty and imperialism in an era when every power is biopolitical as much as geopolitical.

This book elaborates the theory that the psychological apparatus underlying Basque  literature relies pecisely on a very specific and historical form of political interpellation and enjoyment: masculine hysteria and female castration.

In his analysis of the relationship between masculine hysteria and female castration, Gabilondo engages many authors and cultural practitioners with whom he is familiar:  Freud, Zizek, Lacan, Fanon, Bordieu, Deleuze, Butler, Agamben, Gabilondo himself, Sara Montiel, Marujita Diaz and so on, plus, of course, all the Basque folk. Gabilondo`s attempt to rethink biopolitics in geopolitical terms demostrates that Basque political and cultural life relies on a form of fetishism centered on Sabino Arana´s deprived phallus, which is symbolized by the famous Gernikako Arbola (the Oak of Guernica).

In short, Gabilondo attemps to capture the core structure that defines all Basque literature in the following thesis: homoerotism is the founding moment of the Basque country as a nation, which underlies the masculine hysteria and femenine castration that shape Basque literature.

So, hurra for postfreudian, postnational, postqueer, postbasque homosexuality!