Ringvorlesung „Conflicting Masculinities“ | Carlos G. Halaburda M.A., PhD (University of Chicago): Latin America’s Queer Anatomy in Belle Époque Paris: Paul Groussac, Gabriel Yturri, and Abject Glamour

As part of the lecture series Conflicting Masculinities, Carlos G. Halaburda M.A., PhD will give the online lecture: Latin America’s Queer Anatomy in Belle Époque Paris: Paul Groussac, Gabriel Yturri, and Abject Glamour.

On May 25th, 1883, the Franco-Argentine writer and statesman Paul Groussac visited the French naturalist Edmond de Goncourt in his Parisian studio as part of a European tour. While Groussac listened with boredom Gouncourt’s reading of his upcoming novel Cherie, a young queer Argentine living in Paris by the name of Gabriel Yturri, secretary and lover of Count Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac, irrupted into the room after being pompously announced by Goncourt’s housekeeper. Groussac’s description of Yturri’s body would become one of the most exemplary cases of Belle Époque queer abject glamour. In this presentation, I explore the interplay between cosmopolitanism and queerness, revealing how these indicators of national disassociation and gender-sex non-conformity became body markers to describe a deviant anatomy. I show how deciphering the anatomy of cosmopolitan queerness became an effective procedure for coding it as abnormal. Items such as jewels, garments, headwear, fragrances, and cosmetics comprised a queer inventory of gender-bending protheses. Cataloguing these props as the deviant theater of homosexuality served as the fear-infused point of exacerbation in Groussac’s observations. Based on a mixture of fascination and disgust, the main objective in Groussac’s narrative mechanisms would be to engrave a visual grammar for Yturri’s cosmopolitan queerness, conducive to perverse interpretations for his readers in Argentina.

The event will take place online via Zoom. Please register at least one day in advance via e-mail to alina.adrian@rub.de to receive the Zoom link.

As part of the lecture series, you can look forward to many interesting lectures: