Undoing Monogamy : The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology

In Undoing Monogamy Angela Willey offers a radically interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of monogamy in U.S. science and culture, propelled by queer feminist desires for new modes of conceptualization and new forms of belonging. She approaches the politics and materiality of monogamy as intertwined with one another such that disciplinary ways of knowing themselves become an object of critical inquiry. Refusing to answer the naturalization of monogamy with a naturalization of nonmonogamy, Willey demands a critical reorientation toward the monogamy question in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The book examines colonial sexual science, monogamous voles, polyamory, and the work of Alison Bechdel and Audre Lorde to show how challenging the lens through which human nature is seen as monogamous or nonmonogamous forces us to reconsider our investments in coupling and in disciplinary notions of biological bodies. Acknowledgments xi Introduction. Politics and Possibility: A Queer Feminist Introduction to Monogamy 1 1. Monogamy's Nature: Colonial Sexual Science and Its Naturecultural Fruits 25 2. Making the Monogamous Human: Mating, Measurement, and the New Science of Bonding 45 3. Making Our Poly Nature: Monogamy's Inversion and the Reproduction of Difference 73 4. Rethinking Monogamy's Nature: From the Truth of Non/Monogamy to a Dyke Ethics of "Antimonogamy" 95 5. Biopossibility: Molecular Monogamy and Audre Lorde's Erotic 121 Epilogue. Dreams of a Dyke Science 141 Notes 147 Bibliography 169 Index 191 Politics And Possibility: A Queer Feminist Introduction To Monogamy -- Monogamy's Nature: Colonial Sexual Science And Its Naturecultural Fruits -- Making The Monogamous Human: Mating, Measurement, And The New Science Of Bonding -- Making Our Poly Nature: Monogamy's Inversion And The Reproduction Of Difference -- Rethinking Monogamy's Nature: From The Truth Of Non/monogamy To A Dyke Ethics Of Antimonogamy -- Biopossibility: Molecular Monogamy And Audre Lorde's Erotic -- Dreams Of A Dyke Science. Angela Willey. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. In this publication the author offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of monogamy in U.S. science and culture. The book examines colonial sexual science, monogamous voles, polyamory, and the work of Alison Bechdel and Audre Lorde In Undoing Monogamy Angela Willey analyzes the contemporary science of monogamy, demanding a critical reorientation toward the understanding of monogamy and non-monogamy in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.