On Sequins and Shit: The Epistemology of Radical Dress in Mario Mieli's Transsexual Utopia. Issue 1 (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Filippello, Roberto
• Is Part Of: Third text. Volume 35:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 130
• Page End: 144
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Roberto Filippello -- Mario Mieli -- FUORI! -- gay communism -- transsexual utopia -- experiential politics -- radical dress -- genderfuck -- transvestism -- coprophagy; Art and society -- Periodicals; Art -- Developing countries -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Developing countries -- Intellectual life -- Periodicals; 700.91724
• DOI: 10.1080/09528822.2020.1857552
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0952-8822

Abstract

Abstract: This article explores the work of theorist, activist, and performer Mario Mieli through the lens of fashion, unearthing the central function that radical dress occupies in his gay communist project. I focus in particular on how, within Mieli's queer utopianism, radical transvestism operates as an ethico-political praxis with the purpose of challenging capitalism and liberating Eros. On the one hand, fashion is condemned by Mieli with arguments attuned to those used by the Frankfurt School against the culture industry. On the other, dress – intended as a signifier of politicised self-fashioning – emerges as a force incorporated by the crossdresser to establish modes of intersubjectivity rooted in polymorphous desire as well as collective forms of resistance against the Norm. For Mieli, critique is corporeally embodied. On this ground, dress permits the material articulation of embodied critical instances of queer insurrection. I conclude by explaining why, within Mieli's transsexual utopia, crossdressing should be read in alignment with non-normative sexual practices such as coprophagy.