Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Mad Melancholic

...poses an interesting question about feminism:
I am supposed to put together 4 anthologies on the French feminist theorists. The interesting thing...is 3 of the 4 (Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and Helen Cixous) denounce Feminism and are not at all considered crucial players in the women's movement in France...I was intoxicated by the work of Luce Irigaray in graduate school, but as one grows older, one's tastes change...Worse, when I read the scholarship on these three French theorists, I feel so far removed from that tiny corner of Continental Philosophy that talks about the (im)possibility of a woman speaker and the inevitableness of the symbolic order. So, I have to swallow my doubts and dutifully produce a massive work that will perpetuate the illusion that these thinkers are to be reckoned with Internationally. I am, perhaps, participating in the cultural construction of 'French feminism." How to get through it?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps it is stating the obvious, but none of the three women mentioned are actually French. But then again, a series of anthologies on "Francophone Belgian/Romanian/Algerian quasi-Feminists" has a certain ring to it.

Anonymous said...

Good point.