DOCSLIB.ORG

Book Reviews

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Book Reviews Book Reviews Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction and the History of Philoso- phy. By PENELOPE DEUTSCHER. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Robin May Schott Penelope Deutscher’s book Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction and the History of Philosophy locates a major nerve in contemporary feminist de- bates and thus has already earned a place in feminist cyberspace.’ She an- alyzes the concept of instability by successfully interweaving three different strands of analysis: she focuses on the debates about the instability of gender that the works of Judith Butler and Eve Sedgwick have generated; she draws on Jacques Derrida’s notion of the instability of textual logic that is a key in- terpretive strategy of deconstruction; and she uses the concept of instability to analyze the function of the contradictory, ambiguous, and unstable mean- ings of women in the history of philosophy. Deutscher’s thesis is that the insta- bility of the meanings of women and the feminine is constitutive of phallo- centrism in Western philosophy. Deutscher begins by tracing the debates initiated by Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990) and Sedgwick’s The Epistemology of the Closet (1990) about the insta- bility of gender. Butler refers to the “constitutive ambiguity of ‘sex”’ and Sedg- wick to the “operations of. incoherence of definition” (Deutscher 1997, 14), and thus they undermine the notion that sexual categories are natural, stable, coherent forms of identity. But in the popularized version of these texts that one hears often from students, the notion that gender is troubled (that is, constituted as ambiguous or contradictory) is turned into the notion that one is troubling gender (that is, subverting it). Thus, students gleefully declare that gender politics is pass6 (a recent article in the Danish journal for Women, Gender and Research referred to feminism as a “dead herring”*) and that one is now free to create one’s true individual identity. Deutscher’s careful reading of the interpretations and misinterpretations spawned by Butler’s text focuses on the terms constitution and subversion. Al- though Gender Trouble puts forth an argument for the constitutive instability of gender, Butler’s text leads the reader, rhetorically and structurally, to expect a discussion of instability as a subversive category and hence contributes to the misinterpretation that drag is a paradigm for the subversion of gender. Deutscher concludes that what is crucial in Butler’s proposal is the thesis that gender is constituted as troubled (that is, built on ambiguities and contradic- Permission to reprint a book review from this selection may be obtained only from the author. 158 Hypatia tions). But this constitutive trouble does not necessarily destabilize gender, as so many have optimistically believed. Deutscher’s analysis of the reception of Derrida’s work follows a parallel course, though with inverted consequences. In Derrida’s analysis, textual log- ic is “thought of as an unstable, endlessly deferred, hence unreconstructible non-‘unit’”(Deutscher 1997,53). But while Butler’s use of instability has been interpreted mistakenly as troubling gender and hence earned her popular ac- claim, Derrida’s use of instability has been interpreted mistakenly as troub- ling philosophy, and hence earned him professional stigmatization ( 1997,55). Deutscher’s point is that for both theorists, paradox or instability is constitu- tive of identity or meaning, but is not necessarily troubling. Revealing instabil- ity, however, may open up the possibility for subversive intervention. Deutscher uses the concept of instability to interpret the contradictory meanings given to women in the history of philosophy. Feminists have noted that following what philosophers have said about women’s nature is a com- plex and complicated enterprise. Deutscher examines the varying method- ologies that feminists have used in reading texts in the history of philosophy. She criticizes the “subtractive” methodology exemplified by the Australian philosopher Karen Green in The Woman of Reason (1995). In this book, Green argues that appreciating the complexity of a thinker such as Jean Jacques Rousseau diminishes the misogyny of his writings. Deutscher also criticizes the methodology of her countrywoman and teacher, Genevieve Lloyd. Lloyd’s method in The Man of Reason (1984) can be characterized as the “despite” approach. Despite the complexity of Rousseau’s thought, according to Lloyd, Rousseau excludes women from a reason that is associated with the masculine (Deutscher 1997, 5). Deutscher’s own approach can be characterized as the “because” approach. It is because of the instability of the terms woman, man, feminine, and masculine-signs of internal contradictions in the argument- that Rousseau can sustain his phallocentric thought. Deutscher turns for inspiration to French feminist theorists-not for their contribution to debates about sexual difference but for their contribution to methodologies for reading the history of philosophy. In discussing the meth- odologies of Michele Le Doeuff, Sarah Kofman, and Luce Irigaray, Deutscher distinguishes between what she calls a causal or motivational analysis and an effects-based analysis. Both Le Doeuff and Kofman give some evidence of an effects-based analysis. For example, Le Doeuff focuses on how imagery oper- ates rhetorically (Deutscher 1997,68);nonetheless, she also at times operates with a motivational language that seeks to explain the intentions that might have caused the textual instability. Kofman, in Deutscher’s view, leans even more towards the causal-motivational view, despite Kofman’s explicit invoca- tion of Derridean deconstruction. For example, in Le Respect des femmes - Kant et Rousseau ( 1982), Kofman invokes Freudian psychoanalysis to explain these Book Reviews 159 two thinkers’ contradictions surrounding the enigma of woman, who is char- acterized as both the good and bad mother. Thus, it is to Irigaray that Deutsch- er turns for the most consistent use of an effects-based analysis of contradic- tion. Irigaray indicates the paradoxical nature of the representation of the feminine: women, who are not represented in the history of philosophy, “can” not be represented, but at the same time this exclusion gestures towards its possibility (Deutscher 1997, 77). Because a paradoxical structure generates both masculine and feminine identity, Deutscher describes Irigaray’s position as follows: “these identities function on the strength of this internal destabiliza- tion: they are the effect of structural instability” (1997, 79). Deutscher applies this strategy of analyzing the effects of paradox, drawn from Derrida and sexualized by Irigaray, to three figures in the history of phi- losophy that have been a focus for feminist debate: Rousseau, Saint Aug- ustine, and Simone de Beauvoir. Deutscher seeks to illustrate that in the his- tory of philosophy women have not been identified simply with emotion and irrationality and men with rationality, as sometimes has been represented sim- plistically in feminist readings. These writers exemplify a more complex struc- ture. For example, Augustine writes that, “in the original condition of human- ity, since the woman was a human being also, she certainly had her own mind, and a rational mind, according to which she too, was made in the image of God” (Deutscher 1997, 145). Yet he also assigns to women a subordinate po- sition to men: “Suppose it was necessary in order to live together for one to command the other to obey. ” (Deutscher 1997,145).Rather than follow- ing Lloyd’s explanation that Augustine’s symbolism pulls against his doc- trine of sexual equality “despite his good intentions” (Deutscher 1997, 147), Deutscher refuses to isolate one or another of his conflicting tendencies or to neutralize the contradiction. Her proposal is rather that his account not only of woman but also of man and of the man-God relation, is filled with contra- dictions that enable Augustine’s account of these identities. For example, it is the slippage between the terms man and masculinity that allows Augustine to view man as both contaminated by feminine materiality and yet distinguished from it, to view man as both like and unlike God. The divine thus serves as a vanishing point that justifies man’s superiority to woman by the promise of his identification with the divine, though identification with this transcendent ideal is impossible (Deutscher 1997, 160-62). Deutscher concludes that Aug- ustine’s alignment of masculinity with reason is actually an effect of his con- tradictory accounts of woman as both rational and irrational. Only through this strategy can Augustine maintain that reason transcends the bodily and yet define reason through its devaluation of the body and emotions (Deutsch- er 1997, 165). Deutscher’s book gives evidence of a rare combination of strengths. She combines the skills of careful reading (her discussion of Butler’s Gender Trouble 160 Hypatia is outstanding) with a sophisticated methodology inspired by deconstruction, which she applies to reading texts in the history of philosophy. Her proposal that contradictory accounts of women and the feminine in the history of phi- losophy have the effect of sustaining phallocentrism raises to a new height feminist methodological considerations in re-reading the canon. Deutscher underscores the usefulness of deconstruction for interpreting the function of gender in the history of philosophy-a strategy that often has been over- looked. As she
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Françoise Collin, Les Cahiers Du Grif, and French Feminism
    Thinking with an Accent: Françoise Collin, Les cahiers du Grif , and French Feminism Author(s): Rosi Braidotti Source: Signs, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Spring 2014), pp. 597-626 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/674299 . Accessed: 22/01/2015 09:13 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Signs. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 131.211.105.239 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:13:08 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Rosi Braidotti Thinking with an Accent: Franc¸oise Collin, Les cahiers du Grif, and French Feminism ranc¸oise Collin was an institution in her own right. She was the co- founder, in 1973, of the first and most influential French-language F ð Þ feminist journal, Les cahiers du Grif Notebooks of Grif , which moved to Paris from Brussels in 1982.1 That same year, I joined the editorial board, and I worked closely with Franc¸oise until 1990. As a French-speaking Belgian, Collin never quite fit into any nationally indexed classification system.
    [Show full text]
  • Twentieth-Century French Philosophy Twentieth-Century French Philosophy
    Twentieth-Century French Philosophy Twentieth-Century French Philosophy Key Themes and Thinkers Alan D. Schrift ß 2006 by Alan D. Schrift blackwell publishing 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Alan D. Schrift to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. First published 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1 2006 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schrift, Alan D., 1955– Twentieth-Century French philosophy: key themes and thinkers / Alan D. Schrift. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-3217-6 (hardcover: alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-4051-3217-5 (hardcover: alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-3218-3 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-4051-3218-3 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Philosophy, French–20th century. I. Title. B2421.S365 2005 194–dc22 2005004141 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Set in 11/13pt Ehrhardt by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed and bound in India by Gopsons Papers Ltd The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    INTRODUCTION Elaine P. Miller and Maria C. Cimitile It has been ten years since the publication of Engaging With Irigaray. Since that time, three special issues of journals have been devoted to Irigaray’s later writings, but there has been no book-length project that addresses the question that has been raised tangentially by both of these, namely whether Irigaray’s corpus of writings, viewed as a whole, manifests a unity in her own sense of an ongoing open-ended dialogue that respects difference. This volume seeks to address that question and to consider the latest changes in the relational climate of Irigaray scholarship and its critics. Whereas Irigaray’s earliest writ- ings gave rise to a flurry of charges of essentialism, the question that dominated the 1998 special issue of diacritics on Irigaray’s “middle” (post-1984) writings was what exactly she meant when referring to sexual difference as the question that determines our age. Today, the critique of Irigaray seems most focused on the shift in style and sub- ject in her latest, most specifically political and “applied” writings that, at least at first glance, contrast sharply with everything she wrote before. And so our focus in this volume is on the unity of Irigaray’s corpus—not its completion—if only in the sense of, as one of the authors in this volume argues, an impossible yet-to-come. Recent Irigaray scholarship often makes reference to the shift in thematic focus, tone, and style of Irigaray’s latest writings from her earlier, arguably more poetic and more textual philosophical com- mentary to a purportedly more overtly political, “applied” philosophy that “spells out” a message.
    [Show full text]
  • Dorothea Olkowski Department of Philosophy University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Colorado 80933-7150 [email protected] 719-255-4086
    CURRICULUM VITAE Dorothea Olkowski Department of Philosophy University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Colorado 80933-7150 [email protected] 719-255-4086 Education: Ph.D., Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, Dissertation: "Art and the Orientation of Thought," 1986. M.A., Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, Thesis: "Merleau-Ponty and Freud, From the Body of Consciousness to the Body of Flesh," 1978. B.A., State University of New York at Binghamton, NY, Thesis: “Husserl, Heidegger and The Concept of Time,” 1974. Professional Appointments: Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, 2013 to 2015 Director, Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Studies, 2008 to present. Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, 1999 to present. Graduate School Faculty, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Spring 1991 - present. Faculty Fellow, Rotman Institute for Philosophy, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 2010-present. Faculty Research Associate, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, 2008-09. Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, 2006-2008 Interim Director of Women’s Studies, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Spring 2002. Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Summer 1999 - Summer 2002 Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Fall 1997-Fall 1998. Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, 1992 - 1999 Director of Women's Studies, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Fall 1991 - July 1995. Coordinator of Women's Studies, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Fall 1990 - Fall 1991. Assistant Professor, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, 1990 - Spring 1992. Assistant Professor (tenured), College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, 1986 - 90. Assistant Professor (visiting), University of San Diego, San Diego, California, 1985 - 86.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Justice After Kant: Between Constructivism and Deconstruction (Rawls, Habermas, Levinas, Derrida)
    Social Justice after Kant: Between Constructivism and Deconstruction (Rawls, Habermas, Levinas, Derrida) Miriam Bankovsky This thesis is submitted to the School of History and Philosophy at the University of New South Wales in fulfilment of the requirements of a PhD in Philosophy September 2008 PLEASE TYPE THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname: Bankovsky First name: Miriam Other name/s: Ann Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD School: History and Philosophy Faculty: Arts Title: Social Justice after Kant: Between Constructivism and Deconstruction (Rawls, Habermas, Levinas, Derrida) Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) In this thesis, I examine the relation between two contrasting approaches to justice: the constructive and reconstructive projects of Rawls and Habermas, on the one hand, and the deconstructive projects of Levinas and Derrida, on the other. I pursue this task in two stages. First, reconstructing each philosopher’s account of justice as it develops in relation to Kant’s practical philosophy, I identify the central difference between the two approaches. I then argue that each project complements the other. Whilst Rawls and Habermas emphasise the possibility of objectively realising Kant’s idea of an impartial standpoint among autonomous persons, Levinas and Derrida defend the impossibility of determining the content of justice. Rawls and Habermas subscribe to the “art of the possible”, rendering Kant’s impartial standpoint by means of the “original position” (Rawls) or the “procedures of discourse ethics” (Habermas). By contrast, Levinas argues for justice’s failure, discovering, in Kant’s moral law, a principle of responsibility for the particular other which conflicts with impartiality.
    [Show full text]
  • Curriculum Vitae Penelope Lisa Deutscher September 2015
    Curriculum Vitae Penelope Lisa Deutscher September 2015 Professor, Department of Philosophy Associate Director, Critical Theory Cluster Core Faculty, Program of Comparative Literary Studies Affiliate Faculty, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program Northwestern University 1860 Campus Drive, Evanston, Illinois 60208 Tel.: 1 847 491-3656 /5293, Fax: 1 847 491-2547 Email: [email protected] Citizenship: Australian, American (Dual) Born Sydney, Australia 04/05/1966 Education • 1993 Ph.D. (University of New South Wales), Dissertation: Operative Contradiction and the Description of “Woman.” Director: Genevieve Lloyd, External examination committee: Margaret Whitford, Irene Harvey, Elizabeth Grosz. • 1991 Diplôme des études approfondies (University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne) Thesis: “N’est-il pas remarquable que Nietzsche . ait haï Rousseau?” Nietzsche, Rousseau et les femmes. Director: Sarah Kofman. • 1986 B.A. (Hons, first class) (University of Sydney). Professional Employment • Professor, Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University, (from June 2008) • Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University, (Jan 2002-June 2008) • Lane Professor for the Humanities, Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities, Northwestern University, theme year: “Gender, Evolution and the Transhuman,” 2002-3. • Senior Lecturer (US equivalent: Associate Professor, tenured), Department of Philosophy, Australian National University, July 1997-Dec 2001. • Lecturer (US equivalent: Assistant Professor, tenured in 1995), Department of Philosophy, Australian National University, July 1992- June 1997. Teaching and research concentration • Twentieth century and contemporary French Philosophy; Philosophy and Gender; Biopolitics. VISITING PROFESSORSHIPS • V.I.P (Visiting International Professorship), Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 2015-2018 • Marie-Jahoda Visiting Chair in International Gender Studies, Institut für Medienwissenschaft, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Nov-Dec, 2013. 1 LARGE RESEARCH GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS 2015-2106 Invited Planning Grant, Andrew W.
    [Show full text]
  • Critique Betrayal
    CRITIQUE CRITIQUE BETR AYAL RobeRt beRnasconi This first volume in a new EDITED BY bRenna bhandaR series of books from the archive AUSTIN GROSS FRançoise collin of the British journal Radical MATT HARE Philosophy reflects upon the MARIE LOUISE KROGH simon cRitchley rich and troubled history of PeneloPe deutscheR the Enlightenment concept of meena dhanda critique as it has been extended, haRRy haRootunian transformed, translated and Pauline Johnson betrayed in Marxism, feminism and postcolonial theory. BETR AYAL chRistian KeRslaKe The editors, Austin Gross, PhiliPPe lacoue-labaRthe MAtt HAre & MArie Louise KolJa lindneR KroGH, are PhD candidates in the JosePh mccaRney Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), andRew mcGettiGan Kingston University London. PeteR osboRne Rosa & chaRley PaRKin stella sandFoRd lynne seGal essays from the albeRto toscano radical philosophy archive isbn 978-1-9162292-0-4 9 781916 229204 CRITIQUE & BETRAYAL CRITIQUE & BETRAYAL Essays from the Radical Philosophy Archive volume 1 edited by Austin Gross MAtt HAre MArie Louise Krogh Published in 2020 by Radical Philosophy Archive www.radicalphilosophyarchive.com isbn 978-1-9162292-0-4 (pbk) isbn 978-1-9162292-1-1 (ebook) The electronic version of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC-BYNC-ND). For more information, please visit creativecommons.org. The right of the contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright,
    [Show full text]