Machiavelli, Utopia, and Queer Politics

Abstract

This paper reconsiders conflict between the great and the plebs in Machiavelli from a perspective of "queer utopia". The paper maintains that confrontation between the great and the plebs is best understood as a clash between two principles: repetition and inertia versus creativity and action. When the plebeian utopian impulse to be free from the oppression of the great is appropriately excited and expressed as an incessant yearning for the new, the queer political agency that is unleashed results in production of alternative possibilities of living and being in the world that make the society freer and stronger.