They Lied to You About the Eunuchs: Book Launch with Odete

​"To un-make theory like one un-makes history, so as to shine light upon certain possibilities, certain openings that theoretical speech renders impossible. But un-making (re-shaping), taking autonomy over a body—be it your own or the body of the historical material—leaves traces. Scars."

​Writer and performer Odete joins us on the calçada for a launch of their new book, They Lied to You About the Eunuchs.

​This book project introduces the history of eunuchism through auto-theory, historiography, historical fiction and poetry, exploring this identity in the ancient world and what kind of echoes can be heard in the present day. By overlapping various histories, and drawing the line between eunuchs in antiquity and contemporary gender discourse, Odete makes a case for a history of gender that hasn’t yet been written, asking what is the relevance of eunuchs to the history of art? And what does the study of the eunuch expose about the current world? 

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​Odete is a writer and performer. In their work they use paranoia and erotics as somatic ways to relate to archival materials. Lately they have been building connection points between “effeminate” histories, from the baroque castrati to the 19th century dandies.

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