To achieve something by way of negation is not just to state a difference. It is to impose a certain kind of violence and domination on things so ordered around for the sake of epistemic, religious, or political expediency also. The notion of queerness presented in this book takes the view that the process of conceptualizing selves “out-of-order” is fundamentally anti-dialectical, negotiated, political and spiritual. Queerness negation manifested as a form of colonial and postcolonial epistemic and political violence defines reality as the clash of ideal and non-ideal categories. The demand to achieve something by way of negation that dialectics imposes on itself is costly because it treats negation as inevitable. From an anti-dialectical standpoint, analyses of the films Proteus and Karmen Geï deal with the processes of freeing queer selves from colonial and postcolonial negation. The book reflects on the conditions and possibilities of queerness affirmation as an ethics of presence grounded in the politics of negotiation following the proposition of nego-feminism and the practical humanism of Senghor to offer an ethical and embodied vision of an ecological depth of feeling and will as foundational to relational possibilities within the African(a) world.
"Nyeck's book presents interesting analytical arguments from an interdisciplinary perspective. ... The book is suitable for middle to advanced readers interested in queerness in Africa. I will recommend the book for its theoretical insights, analytical strength, and expressed possibilities for the future of queer studies in Africa. The book is also relevant for scholars who seek to replace a state-centered approach with a more people-centered analytical approach to the broad topic of queerness." (Christal Spel, African Studies Review, April 27, 2022)