1. Letter of Recommendation
Simon, Lehel
10th
Feburary, 2010
Mr. Lehel Simon has written his PhD thesis in cultural anthropology and psychology. He has
provided a mapping of gay subjectivity both as a question of enculturation and as a matter of biologic
in/determinism.
In his overview non-(exclusively)heterosexual identity and praxis have either been thematized as
dissidence, subculture or as sublimation.
Mr. Simon’s inquiries have avoided the closeting rhetoric of substitutions and metaphors and,
instead, he provides concrete examples that represent or unveil this discourse − even the existence of
which is often questioned by paternal society.
This allows him to generate an alternate anthropology relying upon data resulting from human
anatomic analyses and from psychodynamic tests. This provides both meaning and existential space for
people who decide to live up to their “gayness” via disclosing a culturally material universe where
closeting is not only unnecessary but it is also meaningless since a major segment of culture − most of
which have been enumerated in Simon’s thesis − is not “compulsorily heterosexual” but, instead, it is by
nature polymorph and exists “per versionem”.
Mr. Simon’s work has been an exceptional feat in Hungarian science. The last time there was an
enquiry made to map the discourses of sex/uality was the late 19th
century.
It is an academic bonus in his work that humanities and natural sciences speak a common
language and, yet, the exactness of the latter does not disfigure the shaping “beauty” and “joy” of the
former.
Lehel Simon’s papers and thesis are thorough, exceptionally handsome pieces of scientific
diligence and they are worth all the support available.
Dr. Ferenc Zsélyi
CSc, PhD, Doct.habil.
professor of media studies,
Dunaújváros College, Hungary
and
full professor of
English and American studies
at the University of Novi Pazar,
Subotica, Serbia