Christine M. Klapeer
Die Tribadin und der Leviathan.
Eine heteronormativitätskritische und lesben-affirmative Analyse von Thomas Hobbes’ Vertragstheorie
The Tribade and the Leviathan.
A lesbian affirmative and critical heteronormativity analysis of Thomas Hobbes’ social contract theory
English abstract
Thomas Hobbes’ (1588–1679) contractual foundation of state authority can be interpreted as a contemporary answer to historical developments, shifts, and cultural upheavals in 16th and 17th century England and France. Based on a lesbian affirmative analysis and critical heteronormativity Christine M. Klapeer looks into possible historical and theoretical linkages between a growing attention towards an emerging discourse about female homoeroticism in the 16th and 17th century and the institutionnalization of a heterosexual regime that can be drawn from Hobbes’ state concept. She is trying to contextualize the contemporary figure of the Tribade within Hobbes’ colonially motivated conception of the "State of Nature" without orderly sexual and gender relations. The figure of the Tribade who is likely to be a threat to the idea of a phallic state is already encoded in Hobbes’ state theory. She is intending to demonstrate, how potential access to female homoeroticism and sexual autonomy can then be considered as a conquerable threat and therefore also a constitutive moment for the heteronormative configuration of modern state concepts, generally and particularly in Hobbes’ Leviathan.