Bruno Perreau

Perreau's most recent research discusses various facets of the French response to queer theory, from the mobilization of activists and the seminars of scholars to the emergence of queer media and translations. It sheds new light on recent events around gay marriage in France, where opponents to the 2013 law saw queer theory as a threat to French family. Perreau questions the return of French Theory to France from the standpoint of queer theory, thereby exploring the way France conceptualizes America. By examining mutual influences across the Atlantic, he seeks to reflect on changes in the idea of national identity in France and the United States, offering insight on recent attempts to theorize the notion of “community” in the wake of Maurice Blanchot's work. Queer Theory: The French Response offers a theory of minority politics that considers an ongoing critique of norms as the foundation of citizenship, in which a feeling of belonging arises from regular reexamination of it.

In France, the process for authorizing an adoption is understood as a “moment of truth” over the course of which administrative categories and social identities enter into a confrontation. Gender is a crucial aspect of this encounter, and the decision to accept or reject an application (by a single man, a woman past menopause, a homosexual person, a married couple, etc.) gives insight into what constitutes a legitimate family in France. To understand how the production of the family and the production of the state are linked, The Politics of Adoption offers a study of parliamentary debates since 1945 alongside French and European case law. It also casts light on social work through a statistical analysis of the different types of justification offered by child social welfare agents when surveyed on the topic of homosexual people who apply for adoption. Perreau's contention is that adoption policies evidence a pastoral power: candidates are not evaluated for what they are but for what they should be. The state is considered as a guide for its citizens who wish to become parents because the state needs them to produce young citizens who fully acknowledge its authority. According to philosopher Judith Butler, Perreau offers "a way of understanding adoption policy as no less than a way of rearticulating political modernity."