Author(iz)ing the Body Monique Wittig, The Lesbian Body and the Anatomy Texts of Andreas Vesalius

anatomy teaching text, and challenges its claim to objectivity, by writing to the texts of Andreas Vesalius. Vesalius, working in the late 15th century, is recognized as having set the precedent for how the anatomy of the human body is taught even today. By writing a ‘lesbian body ’ in disarray, Wittig metaphorically topples the authority and order of the standard Vesalian (male) anatomy. By writing that body as a desiring subject, she also invites us to question the desire for knowledge and ownership of that knowledge, and the illusion of scientific objectivity. Indeed, she offers us a celebration of the subjectivity of the production of texts and iden-tities. But in her rewriting, she must also adopt a particular subject position and guard that position from the ‘wrong ’ interpretations. The Lesbian Body is then, despite its literary and political force, a text which fears the interpretive role of its reader. KEY WORDS anatomy texts lesbian subjectivity queer theory Monique Wittig’s novel The Lesbian Body (Wittig, 1973) has received varying degrees of critical attention over its use and appropriations o