"First published in France in 1999, "Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Y
oung-Girl" dissects the impossibility of love under Empire. The Young-Girl is co
nsumer society's total product and model citizen: whatever "type" of Young-Girl
she may embody, whether by whim or concerted performance, " she can only seduce
by consuming." Filled with the language of French women's magazines, rooted in P
roust's figure of Albertine and the amusing misery of (teenage) romance in Witol
d Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke, and informed by Pierre Klossowski's notion of "living
currency" and libidinal economy, " Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Yo
ung-Girl" diagnoses -- and makes visible -- a phenomenon that is so ubiquitous a
s to have become transparent.
