"Our preeminent living philosopher of being-with has at last turned his speculative attention to sex--'neither sexual difference, nor different sexualities, but sex itself.' If Foucault taught us to mistrust the idea of 'sex itself,' Nancy uncovers what we've missed in our reluctance to think the ontology of sexistence. A profound--and profoundly necessary--meditation on sex and being."--Tim Dean, author of Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking Sex, more than just a part of our experience, troubles our conceptions of existence. Drawing on a fascinating array of sources, ancient and modern, philosophical and literary, Jean-Luc Nancy explores and upholds the form-giving thrust of the drive. Nancy reminds us that we are more comfortable with the drama of prohibitions, ideals, repression, transgression, and destruction, which often hamper thinking about sex and gender, than with the affirmation of an originary trouble at limits of language that divides being and opens the world. Sexistence develops a new philosophical account of sexuality that resonates with contemporary research on gender and biopolitics. Without attempting to be comprehensive, the book ranges from the ancient world through psychoanalysis to discover the turbulence of the drive at the heart of existence.

Jean-Luc Nancy is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg. His wide-ranging thought is developed in many books, including Portrait , The Possibility of a World , The Banality of Heidegger , The Disavowed Community, and Corpus. Steven Miller is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Psychoanalysis and Culture at the University at Buffalo, SUNY.