Gender neutral: Rereading Barthes’s S/Z and the figure of the androgyne

The Neutral is a late concept which Barthes developed during his 1978 lecture course at the College de France. Defined as a stance of ‘retreat’ or ‘oscillation’ that dodges or ‘baffles paradigm’ (binary oppositions), it has never been referred to as directly associated with questions of gender and sexuality. Yet its sexual undertones can be strongly felt in many of Barthes’s works. Given Barthes’s reticence on his own gay sexuality and the interest the discovery of his posthumous autobiographical fragments/diaries sparked in the Feminist and Queer communities, it seems useful to revisit some of his own writings in order to better understand his implied views on sexual difference, homosexuality and identity politics. S/Z, Barthes’s seminal analysis of Balzac’s short story Sarrasine, emerges as a key text foretelling the figure of the Neutral, translating at the same time the relation between Barthes’s own sexuality and work. Some fifty years after the ‘Structuralist Controversy’ at Johns Hopkins University, how can we read this exemplary (post)structuralist analysis in a way that re-inscribes the central question of sexuality and gender in-difference? We propose a hospitable rereading of S/Z that will open dialogues between Queer Studies and various branches of literary studies.