Historicizing As a Feminist Practice
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Historicizing as a Feminist Practice. The Places of History in Judith Butler’s Constructivist Theories. Historiseren als feministisch project. De plaats van geschiedenis in het constructivisme van Judith Butler. (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift Katriina Honkanen Historicizing as a Feminist Practice. The Places of History in Judith Butler’s Constructivist Theories. Historiseren als feministisch project. De plaats van geschiedenis in het constructivisme van Judith Butler. (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, Prof. dr. W.H. Gispen ingevolge het besluit van het College voor Promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 10 november 2004 des middags te 12.45 uur door Katriina Honkanen geboren op 17 december 1965 te München, Duitsland FACULTEIT DER LETTEREN Promotores: Prof. Dr. Rosi Braidotti (Universiteit Utrecht) Prof. Dr. Marianne Liljeström (Turku University, Finland) Dit proefschrift werd mede mogelijk gemaakt met de financiële steun van: The Gender System Graduate School, Finland The Institute of Women’s Studies at Åbo Akademi University The Swedish Cultural Foundation The Waldemar Von Frenckell Foundation The Gösta Brander Foundation The Academy of Finland Institute of Women’s Studies at Åbo Akademi University Table of Contents: 1. Introduction: Stating the problem…………………………… 1 The structure of the dissertation 2. Problematic historicizing……………………………………… 15 History as the past, the past as real, the past as context Historicism Constructivism and historicism 2.1. Theoretical framework……………………………………… 25 Corporeal constructivism Combining the discursive and the material 2.2. Background to historico-philosophical questions………….. 42 A feminist philosophy of history -a historico-philosophical feminism? Nodal points Historical ontologies and outsides Unmeaning A strategic forgetting of history? 3. Historicity – temporality………………………………………… 63 Historicity and constructivism: some uses of historicity and belonging Form – matter and historicity Arguing within historicity 3.1. Historicity and objects…………………………………………. 75 3.1.1. Objects from the past, objects and belonging………………… 76 Contextuality: Historicity of objects as belonging Luce Irigaray’s problematization of belonging, historicity and language…. 90 Genesis The language 3.2. Temporality and the event………………………………………… 101 Some thoughts on the intimacy between temporality and historicity Times Chronology Linear, Cyclic, Kairos, Aion… Space and time 3.2.1. Temporality in Judith Butler’s theory………………… 118 Always already: at all times before this time Contingency and constructivism 4. Constructivism and historicity……………………………… 131 Constructivism against fixity and foundations: historicize! 4.1. Constructivism and Realism……………………………………. 136 Constructivism in the field of history History as other foundation 4.2. Form, Matter, and constructivism……………………………… 143 Productive historical forms 4.3. The Historicity of the "Constitutive Outside”…………………. 153 5. Performativity………………………………………………………. 163 5.1. Performativity and historicity…………………………………… 166 The force of historicity Performative constructivism: iterable marks Iterability as a verb The force of the break 6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………… 180 Virtual non-historicity: A strategic forgetting of history 7. References……………………………………………………………… 191 Summary………………………………………………………………….. 208 Dutch summary…………………………………………………………… 212 1. Introduction: Stating the problem I believe, indeed, that we are all suffering from a consuming fever of history and ought at least to recognize that we are suffering from it (Nietzsche 1983, 60) Historicizing and re-writing histories are usually considered as necessary and positive operations in academic settings. To treat concepts or objects ahistorically or to write universalizing historical narratives is considered negative. When discussing an object or concept, a sense of epistemological certainty is achieved by referring to the historical specificity of it. Also, constructivist theories often refer to the historicity of constructions; whatever has a history is contingent and thus constructed. To understand the meaning of an object often requires knowledge about its history and its historical emergence. The present state of things is explained through the historicity of meaning. Our understanding of sexuality, for instance, can be explained through investigating how the meanings of sexuality were historically produced. I point at these tendencies, which I have encountered within academic settings, as indicators of the epistemological value that historical knowledge, or a consuming fever of history, has gained in feminist thinking. It is my wish to contribute to feminist theoretization1 on issues in relation to historicity. Inspired by the feminist critique of historicism I propose that the predominant state of theory within feminism is enabled by the epistemological hegemony of historicizing constructivism. I want to discuss the metanarrative status that history has gained. I claim that feminist constructivist arguments depend on such aspects of historical thinking that are otherwise problematized by feminist epistemologists. One of these aspects is foundationalism, with another being universalism. My interest in the philosophy of history arose from a desire to figure out the twofold task that is so often voiced as the goal for feminist theories and feminist histories. Firstly, there is a need to rewrite history. This has meant going back to historical sources, 1 Felski 2000, Ermarth 2001, 1992, Colebrook 1996, 1997, 1999, Irigaray 1999. 1 seeking out information about women and writing the histories of women. The task of re- writing history has been the responsibility of historians of women. The historical narratives focusing on women could also be used as tools in pointing at the inadequacies of universal histories. Another narrative in relation to mainstream history is created as women are made the subjects of history (Shapiro 1994, Scott 1996, Steedman 1994). Secondly, there is an epistemological approach within feminist theorizing that stresses the importance of historicizing concepts, categories, differences and identities (Scott 1996, 1, Kellner 1998, 42). This approach means that identities or objects are not considered as ahistorical givens that have had an effect on the course of history in various ways, but rather, that the categories and concepts are themselves historical, in need of an historical investigation to be understood in their (historical) specificity. To put it briefly, I was puzzled by the shifts in perspective: an ontological understanding of history seemed to be in opposition to an epistemological understanding, or a conceptual approach to history seemed to be opposed to an empirical approach. The twofold requirement to be both a historical realist (and empiricist) and to account for the epistemology behind that realism (that is, the construction of that real) has shaped and remolded the writing of history and the theories of history. Hans Kellner discusses the challenge that historians faced using the metaphor of the Galilean telescope: the Galilean telescope was a modernist device through which the independent historian- subject used to look at the past. The Galilean telescope, in the shape of historical method, showed the historian her object of investigation – the reality that now was past. In this empiricist understanding the historian could grasp the actual reality of the past. The linguistic turn of the late twentieth century transformed the telescope (Kellner 1995, 14). The telescope has become language. Today history also has been pushed towards a full-blown concept that language constitutes the knowable world, limits the ways in which we can know and represent it, and offers us as natural what is in fact conventional (Kellner 1995, 14). The realism and empiricism that history is still built on may seem naive from a linguistic point of view: 2 At the same time, historians just as routinely behave as though their research were into the past, as though their writings were “about” it, and as though “it” were as real as the text which is the object of their labours (Kellner 1995, 10). When I analyze the places of history in Judith Butler's constructivism I am aware of this tension between the real and the constructed. As the tension between the real and constructed is too broad to adequately engage with I have narrowed it down to the form- matter distinction by using this distinction as an analytical tool (I will return to this later). I am especially interested in the ways that feminist constructivist theories at times use history as if it was “about” the past and as though “it” were as real as the text that refers to “it”. In what ways do feminists use the words ‘history’, ’historicity’ and ’historicizing’? What grammar do these words have in feminist theoretical language? I am interested in looking at the ways in which historicity is used in feminist theories to see where and how it stands as a ground for knowledge, as this is one of the strongest employments of the word ‘history’. History is origin; it is our past. Where can I find this usage of the word ‘history’ in feminist theorizing and why is this particular usage effective in those particular arguments? The different uses of ’history’ imply different textual purposes. What is gained by understanding the word history as meaning being about the past? There is an alternation