Sean P. O'Connell

Outspeak : Narrating Identities That Matter by Sean P. O'Connell

What does it mean to claim to be gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, straight, or to belong to some racial category, or to be a teenager or a senior citizen? Taking as its focal point the articulation of sexual orientation, Outspeak adopts a narrative approach to understanding professions of identity that does justice to the fears of those who recognize the potential of such labels to oppress, marginalize, and silence. It explores the ways in which professing identity speaks the truth and demands a hearing. In so doing, it addresses the fears of people who see attacks on "gay" and "lesbian" identities as erasing and silencing those who find a voice through them.

To understand the implications of the narrative structure of identity for liberatory praxis, O'Connell enlists the work of theorists such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and engages continental thinkers such as Ricoeur, Levinas, Heidegger, and Lyotard, whose ideas add much to the development of a narrative theory.

"O'Connell's approach to the issues is refreshing. He offers a hermeneutical approach to understandings of gay and lesbian identity. His scholarship is first-rate. The breadth of his resources is quite amazing. Yet O'Connell provides concise, fair summaries of the wide range of philosophers and other scholars whom he engages so that his text remains accessible to those who have not read as widely as he. I am envious of his ability to make extremely difficult texts (for example, those of Judith Butler and Jurgen Habermas) accessible while at the same time doing justice to them. O'Connell's subject matter is one that demands making philosophy relevant to concepts of gender identity and political solidarity. He achieves that goal." -- Sharon Meagher, The Union Institute

"This book will be useful to understanding contemporary ethical theory, feminist theory and political theory. It will be helpful for people struggling with coming out and for those who have long since made themselves known. Importantly, it will serve as a handbook for coalition politics whether that politics involves issues of sexuality or not." -- Alison Leigh Brown, author of Subjects of Deceit: A Phenomenology of Lying

Biography

Originally from South Carolina, I received my B.A. and M.A. from Catholic University and my Ph.D. from Fordham University.  For the past fourteen years, I have taught philosophy at Albertus Magnus College and am currently a tenured professor.

I have a partner of 15 years, William Branch.  We have had a wonderful and fulfilling relationship.  To celebrate that relationship, we entered into civil union in Vermont last October (2000).  For several years, we have been active in Love Makes a Family, an organization that seeks legislation supporting the rights of our gay and lesbian families.

Organizations & Institutions

Albertus Magnus College

Fields of Study

Published Works

OutSpeak: Narrating Identities that Matter. New York: SUNY Press, 2000

"Telling Tales in School: A Queer Response to the Heterosexist Narrative Structure Informing General Education," forthcoming in The Journal of Homosexuality

Claiming One's Identity: A Constructivist/Narrativist Approach, in Perspectives on Embodiment. Ed. Gail Weiss. New York: Routledge, 1999.  (An early draft of this essay was also presented at the 1995 International Association of Philosophy and Literature Conference held at Villanova University in Philadelphia)

Carving a New Direction for Gender Studies: The Road from Foucault to a Hermeneutics of the Given, in Accountability in Writing. Ed. Kerin Kelsey. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1995. (An early draft of this essay was presented at the Fall, 1993 SPEP Conference in New Orleans)

But is the Unexamined Life Not Worth Living: Reflections on a Socratic Myth, in Accountability in Writing. Ed. Kerin Kelsey. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1995.

Plato's Philebus, in Auslegung: A Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 10, No. 3 (Winter 1983), pp. 247-270.

Book Review: Stanley Rosen. The Ancients and the Moderns, Thought: A  Review of Culture and Idea. Vol. LXVI, No. 262 (September 1991), pp. 347-349.

Conference Papers and Presentations

The Ambiguous Case for Gay Marriage (Invited paper delivered at The Rainbow Center, University of Connecticut), 2001

The Place of Queer Theory in Higher Education (Invited paper at the Stonewall Center, University of Massachusetts at Amherst), 2000

Telling Tales in School: A Queer Response to the Heterosexist Narrative Structure Informing General Education. (Conference paper delivered at the 1999 APA Northeastern Division meeting, and at  the 1999 SPEP Meeting.)

The Use of Narrative in College Teaching (Presented at a Spring, 1997 CIC conference, Albany, NY)

Gender Studies: A Test Case for Building Community in a Pluralist Society (Presented at the Fall, 1991 GLSC, Rutgers University)

Models of Faculty Development (Presented at a Faculty Colloquium, Albertus Magnus College, Spring, 1991)

An Examination of the Presuppositions Underlying Paul Ricoeur's Hermeneutic Phenomenology (Presented at the Spring, 1988 ACPA Roundtable in New York)

Current Projects

I am currently working on an essay on gay marriage that offers a response to Michael Warner and others in Queer Theory who oppose gay and lesbian marriage.

I am also revising an essay that has been accepted for publication which draws upon Paul Ricoeur, Emanuel Levinas and Judith Roof to argue that colleges and universities have a moral obligation to develop Queer Studies programs.

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