Paul B. Preciado

Paul B. Preciado
Born Beatriz Preciado
(1970-09-11)11 September 1970
Burgos, Castille and León, Spain
Occupation Philosopher, writer
Language Castilian
Subject Sexuality, gender identity

Paul B. Preciado, (born Beatriz Preciado in 1970 in Burgos, Spain)[1] is a contemporary writer, philosopher and curator whose work focuses on applied and theoretical topics relating to identity, gender, pornography, architecture and sexuality.[2] Known originally as a female writer and identified as a lesbian,[3] Preciado announced in 2014 that he was transitioning[4] and, in January 2015, changed his first name from Beatriz to Paul.[5]

Preciado came to The New School in New York from Spain on a Fulbright scholarship to get an MA in Philosophy. Jacques Derrida and Agnes Heller became mentors to Preciado. In 1999, Derrida invited Preciado to teach a seminar in Paris on forgiveness and the gift during transformation. Later, he came back to the United States to complete his PhD in Philosophy and Theory of Architecture at Princeton University, writing a disseration called, Pornotopía: Architecture and Sexuality in Playboy During the Cold War in 2010.[6]

Preciado is currently professor of Political History of the Body, Gender Theory, and History of Performance at Université Paris VIII and is the director of the Independent Studies Program (PEI) of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA).[7]

Since January 2013, Preciado regularly contributes to French newspaper Libération's website Liberation.fr, in a column having gender, sexuality, love and biopower as recurrent themes.[4]

Preciado dated French writer-director Virginie Despentes from 2005 to 2014.[3][4][8]

Testo Junkie (2008)

In 2008, the book Testo Junkie: sex, drugs, and biopolitics in the pharmacopornographic era, relating Preciado's experience on self-administering testosterone, was published in Spain (as Testo yonqui) and in France.[9] The work was later translated into English in 2013.

Preciado takes a topical pharmaceutical, Testogel,[10] as a homage to French writer Guillaume Dustan, a close gay friend who contracted AIDS and died of an accidental overdose of a medication he was taking,[11] and investigates the politicization of the body by what he terms "pharmacopornographic capitalism".[12]

Preciado described the act of taking testosterone as both political and performance, aiming to undo a notion of gender encoded in one's own body by a system of sexuality and contraception.[13]

In the work, Preciado describes and analyses the changes provoked by the testosterone from the point of view of the relationship with Virginie Despentes (referred to as "VD" in the book).[14] Testo Junkie also deals with the political aspect of other drugs that transform the body, such as birth control, Viagra, drugs used in doping, Prozac, and estrogen.

Publications

Art and Curatorial

References

  1. ↑ Preciado, Paul B. "Catalunya Trans". El Estado Mental. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  2. ↑ Stuettgen, Tim. "Disidentification in the Center of Power: The Porn Performer and Director Belladonna as a Contrasexual Culture Producer (A Letter to Beatriz Preciado)." Women's Studies Quarterly 35.1/2 (2007): 249–270.
  3. 1 2 Cécile Daumas, " Tête à queue ", Libération, 14 October 2008.
  4. 1 2 3 Preciado, Paul B. "La statistique, plus forte que l'amour". Libération. Retrieved 2015-02-15.
  5. ↑ Catalogne Trans, Libération, 16 January 2015
  6. ↑ "Gender Talents Special Address." Tate Modern. February 2013.
  7. ↑ “Beatriz Preciado," (author bio) Feminist Press.
  8. 1 2 “Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics.” E-Flux.
  9. ↑ "Meet the 'Testo Junkie' Who Hacks Her Gender with Testosterone | VICE | Canada". Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  10. ↑ "'Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era’ by Beatriz Preciado". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  11. ↑ Pila, Renaud (11 October 2005), "Mort de l'écrivain gay Guillaume Dustan, adepte du sexe à risques", La Chaîne Info (in French), retrieved 2008-09-24
  12. ↑ “Pharmacopornography: An Interview with Beatriz Preciado.” The Paris Review. 4 December 2013.
  13. ↑ Tucker, Ricky (4 December 2013). "Pharmacopornography: An Interview with Beatriz Preciado". Paris Review Daily. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  14. ↑ Fateman, Johanna. "Bodies of Work". Retrieved 2015-08-02.
  15. ↑ Williams, Richard J. Pornotopia: An Essay on Playboy’s Architecture and Biopolitics, by Beatriz Preciado. 16 October 2014.
  16. ↑ "The Contra-Sexual Manifesto." Total Art Journal. April 2013.
  17. ↑ "Beatrix Preciado." Contemporary Art Daily. September, 2014
  18. ↑ “'La Pasión Según Carol Rama' at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona." Art Media Agency (AMA). 22 October 2014.
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