Joshua Kramer

What can we learn from the Socratic-Diotiman picture of eros? What can be clarified in, or added to, the genderqueer vision of love that Diotima either professes or inspires? My aim here is to recover, envision, and build a more liberatory and LGBTQ-inclusive account of eros and how we relate to one another generally. In particular, I will put Diotiman pregnancy into conversation with non-choreographed dancing as an analogy for eros. I argue that this analogy illuminates an aspect of eros that complements Diotima’s picture: specifically, the spontaneous and atelic valence of non-choreographed dance offers a model for understanding a crucial aspect of the experience of eros, suggests a path for loosening and disbanding rigid social roles around eros, and, as such, brings a more egalitarian future into view.