: I argue that Irigaray's recent work develops a theoretically cogent and politically radical form of realist essentialism. I suggest that she identifies sexual difference with a fundamental difference between the rhythms of percipient fluids constituting women's and men's bodies, supporting this with a philosophy of nature that she justifies phenomenologically and ethically. I explore the politics Irigaray derives from this philosophy, which affirms the sexes' rights to realize the possibilities of their rhythmically diverse bodies.

Los ensayos aquí reunidos buscan ampliar el marco teórico de los estudios sobre Simone de Beauvoir en lengua castellana. Además, tienen como propósito fundamental ofrecer a sus posibles lectores algunas ideas para pensar problemas diversos en contextos muy específicos. Algunos de estos trabajos simplemente quieren acercar una mirada general sobre la figura de Beauvoir y sus principales preocupaciones teóricas, otros se sumergen en campos novedosos donde el análisis conceptual busca dar respuesta a problemas urgentes en medio de preocupaciones académicas. Esperamos (...) que la recepción de esta contribución pueda aportar de manera rigurosa a las exploraciones de quienes encuentran en Beauvoir una fuente de comprensión para elaborar sus propias inquietudes. (shrink)

Some feminist commentators ignore Luce Irigaray’s contributions to rethinking classical and neoclassical theories of the market when their aims and hers are often largely of a piece. Other feminist commentators celebrate Irigaray’s writings by privileging a certain conception of the gift her philosophy is said to evoke because it challenges the logic of the market economy and its masculinist biases. Instead of viewing the market and the gift in a binary way, I argue that Irigaray examines the conditions of possibility (...) for transvaluing value and exchange as such. By way of an internal critique of economic texts and discourses, Irigaray draws out the available conceptual resources for the possibility of a model of exchange between two positively valued – sexuate – subjects. In this article I focus on the texts where Irigaray explicitly engages with key components of political economy – ‘Commodities among Themselves’, ‘Women on the Market’ and ‘Women, the Sacred and Money’ – and also her conceptualisation of a nonmarket economy in Elemental Passions. These brilliant and complex essays yield an understanding of the forms and the flows (value and exchange) of all economies (whether symbolic, linguistic, cultural or political) necessary for cultivating a sexuate economy. (shrink)

_Essays on Beauvoir’s influences, contemporary engagements, and legacy in the philosophical tradition._.

Increasingly, feminist theorists, such as Alison Martin and Ellen T. Armour, are attending to the numerous religious allusions within texts by Luce Irigaray. Engaging with this scholarship, this paper focuses on the problematic of evil that is elaborated within Irigarayan texts. Mobilizing the work of Catherine Malabou, the paper argues that Malabou's methodology of reading, which she identifies as "plastic," illuminates the logic at work within Irigaray's deployment of sacred stories.

: Drawing on Adriana Cavarero's account of natality, Guenther argues that Martin Heidegger overlooks the distinct ontological and ethical significance of birth as a limit that orients one toward an other who resists appropriation, even while handing down a heritage of possibilities that one can—and must—make one's own. Guenther calls this structure of natality Being-from-others, modifying Heidegger's language of inheritance to suggest an ethical understanding of existence as the gift of the other.

This article examines two modalities of law, depicted spatially as the vertical and the horizontal. The intellectual background for seeing law in vertical and horizontal dimensions is to be found in much socio-legal scholarship. These approaches have challenged the modernist, legal positivist and essentially vertical view of law as a system of imperatives emanating from a hierarchically superior source such as a sovereign. In keeping with the socio-legal critical tradition, but approaching it from the perspective of legal philosophy, my aim (...) is to address three matters. First, why is vertical law problematic for feminists? Second, what are the theoretical characteristics of law in its horizontal register? Third, how is an appreciation of this ‘flat’ law useful for feminist legal theory and practice? In particular, I consider the ways in which feminist legal theory operating in the horizontal dimension can transgress, without transcending, the vertically determined perimeters of the nation state. (shrink)

The “fathers’ rights” movement represents policies that undermine women's reproductive autonomy as furthering the cause of gender equality. Khader argues that this movement exploits two general weaknesses of equality claims identified by Luce Irigaray. She shows that Irigaray criticizes equality claims for their appeal to a genderneutral universal subject and for their acceptance of our existing symbolic repertoire. This article examines how the plaintiffs’ rhetoric in two contemporary “fathers’ rights” court cases takes advantage of these weaknesses.

On February 22, 2001, three Bosnian Serb soldiers were found guilty of crimes against humanity. Their offense? Rape. This is the first time that rape has been pros-ecuted and condemned as a crime against humanity. Appealing to Jacques Derrida's democracy of the perhaps and Judith Butler's politics of performative contradiction, I see this judgment inaugurating a politics of the vulnerable body which challenges current understandings of evil, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

This article explores the pedagogical, transformative aspects of education as a relation, viewing such transformation as occurring in the liminal space between body and spirit. In order to explore this liminal space more thoroughly, the article first outlines a case for why liminality is of educational and not only of pedagogical concern, building on James Conroy's notion of the liminal imagination and his emphasis on the importance of metaphor for calling our attention to the ontological spaces that make up educational (...) practice. I then use this metaphor both substantively and methodologically, offering a reading of Clarice Lispector's novel The Stream of Life as a performance of the liminal imagination in its attempt to put into focus the embodied and transcendent aspects of becoming, both of which I see as central to defining what is pedagogical about human existence. The article then turns to developing how different metaphors may be mobilised to signify the particularly relational quality of becoming, drawing on Luce Irigaray's work to explore more closely the corporeal and spiritual aspects of becoming in relation. I then turn my attention to a more fulsome discussion of the significance of approaching pedagogical relationships in education in this way and what this signifies for the teacher-student encounter in particular. (shrink)

Drawing Wittgenstein's and Irigaray's philosophies into conversation might help resolve certain misunderstandings that have so far hampered both the reception of Irigaray's work and the development of feminist praxis in general. A Wittgensteinian reading of Irigaray can furnish an anti-essentialist conception of "woman" that retains the theoretical and political specificity feminism requires while dispelling charges that Irigaray's attempt to delineate a "feminine" language is either groundlessly utopian or entails a biological essentialism.

In this essay, I examine Luce Irigaray’s aesthetic of sexual difference, which she develops by extrapolating from Paul Klee’s idea that the role of painting is to render the non-visible rather than represent the visible. This idea is the premise of her analyses of phenomenology and psychoanalysis and their respective contributions to understanding art and sexual identity. I claim that Irigaray assembles an aesthetic of sexual difference that exceeds these familiar intellectual traditions, one that articulates the encounter of non-visible, material (...) forces that engender modes of sexuate being and becoming. I further claim that this encounter is the very matter of artistry and art-making. (shrink)

This article considers Beauvoir’s gesture towards fraternité at the end of The Second Sex (1949) by focusing on her fleeting characterisation of this future as ‘an androgynous world’. Generally, either Beauvoir’s call for fraternité is dismissed as an erasure of sexual difference and is thus seen to be politically bankrupt, or fraternité is understood to realise sexual difference. This latter reading suggests that androgyny plays no role in Beauvoir’s solution to women’s oppression, while the other view often sees it as (...) one effect of fraternité. This article takes a different position by arguing that Beauvoir affirms sexual difference and commits to an androgynous future. The article argues that androgyny is an affective mood that is constitutive of an openness in the field of possibility for living sexual difference. Consequently, androgyny plays not only a central role in fraternité, but also gestures to a future beyond dimorphic sexual difference. (shrink)

This paper problematises the ways women’s leadership has been understood in relation to male leadership rather than on its own terms. Focusing specifically on ethical leadership, we challenge and politicise the symbolic status of women in leadership by considering the practice of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. In so doing, we demonstrate how leadership ethics based on feminised ideals such as care and empathy are problematic in their typecasting of women as being simply the other to men. We apply (...) different strategies of mimesis for developing feminist leadership ethics that does not derive from the masculine. This offers a radical vision for leadership that liberates the feminine and women’s subjectivities from the masculine order. It also offers a practical project for changing women’s working lives through relationality, intercorporeality, collective agency and ethical openness with the desire for fundamental political transformation in the ways in which women can lead. (shrink)

In Luce Irigaray's thought, Socrates is a marginal figure compared to Plato or Hegel. However, she does identify the Socratic dialectical position as that of a ‘phallocrat’ and she does conflate Socratic and Platonic philosophy in her psychoanalytic reading of Plato in Speculum of the Other Woman. In this essay, I critically interpret both Irigaray's own texts and the Platonic dialogues in order to argue that: the Socratic dialectical position is not ‘phallocratic’ by Irigaray's own understanding of the term; that (...) Socratic philosophy should not be conflated with the mature Platonic metaphysics Irigaray criticizes; and that Socratic dialectical method is similar in some respects with the dialectical method of Diotima, Socrates’ instructress in love and the subject of Irigaray's “Sorcerer Love” essay in An Ethics of Sexual Difference. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues that complexity theories have limited use in the study of society, and that social processes are too complex and particular to be rigorously modeled in complexity terms. Theories of social complexity are shown to be inadequately developed, and typical weaknesses in the literature on social complexity are discussed. Two stronger analyses, of Luhmann and of Harvey and Reed, are also critically considered. New considerations regarding social complexity are advanced, on the lines that simplicity, complexity (...) that can be modeled, and incondensible complexity permeate society simultaneously. The difficulty of establishing complexity models for processes involving ongoing interpretation is discussed. It is argued that the notions of system and environment need recasting in social studies. Existing social studies and literature, it is argued, reflect a polymorphous, contextual, contingent, labyrinthine, dramatic and political face to social complexity. Students of social complexity must be literate in such studies. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the issue of Luce Irigaray's proximity to Jacques Derrida on the question of woman. I use Derrida's reading of Nietzsche in Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles (1979) and Irigaray's reading of Heidegger in L'Oubli de l'air (1983) to argue that reading them as supplements to one another is more accurate and more productive for feminism than separating one from the other. I conclude by laying out the benefits for feminism that such a reading would offer.

This article is an introduction to contemporary experimental poetry by women. It considers the reasons for the resistance to such work in this country. It refutes arguments made against it, for example that avant-garde writing is elitist or not related to women's experience. It further suggests why this writing, in particular in its complex engagement with issues of language, subjectivity and gender, should in fact be of great interest to the woman/feminist reader. In particular, it suggests parallels between the concerns (...) of this work and those of feminist poststructuralism. Above all, throughout the piece, it attempts to introduce the ‘provisional pleasures’ of the contemporary avant-garde to the reader, introducing, quoting and providing multiple interpretations of the work of several diverse writers in this tradition. It aims to provide a sense of the linguistic and formal innovations of these writings, alongside a sense of their relevance to questions of female subjectivity and of women's relationship to the dominant discourses of our time. (shrink)

An ecological focus is not simply an additional perspective to add to a multidimensional approach to feminist theologies. Ecological thinking requires a fundamental shift of perspective, so that the focus of feminism, traditionally a human focus, is rethought within the frame of the materiality that constitutes not only humans but Earth and cosmos. As a way of situating feminist theological discourses and experiences ecologically, this article focuses on a shared materiality as a basis for reframing human being, dwelling, agency and (...) labour, in terms of co-being, habitat, co-agency and more-than-human labour. This reframing implies a rethinking of human freedom that has implications for how we engage with feminist theologies in relation to the future of Earth and humankind. (shrink)

My essay incorporates Irigaray's notion of the sensible transcendental, a dynamic attempt to reconstitute the body/mind dualism which founds Western thought, into a reading of the practice of European concert dance. I contend that Irigaray's efforts toward articulating a language of the body as active agent have much to offer analyses of dance practice, and develop this claim through a reading which reflects philosophically on the changing nature of my own dance activity.

In this paper I describe the relevance of philosopher Peter Sloterdijk's book Bubbles for social psychology. Bubbles offers the opportunity for the development of what I call a round social psychology. This is in contrast to the flatness characteristic of some of the more influential contemporary varieties of social psychology. Flat social psychology stays close to the ground, and is focused on the coordination of action. Round social psychology describes the atmosphere that surrounds and makes interaction possible in the first (...) place. It requires a theory that links intersubjectivity with spatiality. To describe flat social psychology I analyze the assumptions of three contemporary versions of social psychology: social cognition theory, Goffman's dramaturgy, and Gergen's relational psychology. I then describe in greater detail Sloterdijk's bubble philosophy and the characteristics of round social psychology. (shrink)

With almost a century of historical distance between Heidegger’s retrieval of the question of being and contemporary concern about the Other, we have accrued invaluable experiences for critical leverage about what it is to ask one another questions. I offer a sketch aimed at adapting Tillich’s theological system grounded in existential questioning to today by juxtaposing him with Levinas’ philosophical ethics. Tillich and Levinas provide motive for reflection on the topic of questioning in particular. In the case of Tillich, questions (...) constitute a crucial moment in the dialogue between our contemporary existential situation and religious symbols, or in what he called the ‘method of correlation.’ Furthermore, Tillich locates in the very structure of questioning the germ of our participation in our essential nature despite existential disruption. Beneath his more provocative and prophetic discourse on the absolute desolation and height of the Other, Levinas sees in questions a different kind of possibility. It is not our essential and existential selves, but oneself and the absolutely Other who come together in the question yet retain their infinite difference. Heidegger is the immediate predecessor from whom both Tillich and Levinas inherit a predilection for reflection on questioning. What is at stake is not merely the legacy of Heidegger’s construal of questioning, but, more importantly here, the fundamental sources Tillich and Levinas posit as the origin of our questioning. (shrink)

This paper examines the ways in which Luce Irigaray and Jean-François Lyotard critique western metaphysics by drawing on notions of birth and infancy. It shows how both thinkers position birth as an event of beginning that can be reaffirmed in every act of initiation and recommencement. Irigaray's reading of Diotima's speech from Plato's Symposium is positioned as a key text for this project alongside a number of essays by Lyotard in which he explores the potency of infancy as the condition (...) of philosophy itself. Despite this potency, however, Lyotard suggests that metaphysics is haunted by a melancholia that is inseparable from the limits of thought. I argue that Irigaray is able both to explain why western metaphysics is constitutively melancholic and to offer a shift in perspective that means we are not inevitably condemned to melancholia. The paper concludes that while Lyotard's account of infancy challenges the terms of western metaphysics from within, Irigaray's reassessment of our beginnings in birth offers the possibility of an alternative metaphysical horizon. (shrink)

Luce Irigaray classically challenges what she takes to be the masculine foundations of knowledge in Western liberal culture. The present article contends not only that this epistemological challenge implicates a radical feminist politics, but that it is also more helpful in formulating a multicultural feminist theory than is often acknowledged by her readers. This is because her account responds to the false neutrality of liberal feminist approaches to multiculturalism. It does so by supporting, at the socio-political level, transformative genealogical practices (...) that are aimed at fostering women's agency in culturally sensitive ways. However, Irigaray's recent work on multiculturalism does not sustain the necessary continuity between her core epistemological critique and her political claims. In particular, the continuity between her criticism of the West's sexual indifference and the cultural multiplicity of female identity becomes problematic in her recent work. The author finally contends that Irigaray's writings pose difficulties for a multicultural feminism, because they fail to specify the different forms of policy necessary to promote diverse women's equality in the postcolonial contexts on which she recently focuses. (shrink)

Luce Irigaray is often cited as the principle feminist who adheres to phenomenology as a method of descriptive philosophy. A different approach to Irigaray might well open the way to not only an avoidance of phenomenology's sexist tendencies, but the recognition that the breach between Irigaray's ideas and those of phenomenology is complete. I argue that this occurs and that Irigaray's work directly implicates a Bergsonian critique of the limits of phenomenology.

This article presents Irigaray as a philosopher committed to sociopolitical change by discussing her political thought and her engagement with the European Parliament. It traces her recent work with the ex-Communist Party in Italy back to her early critique of Marx and her subsequent attraction to Hegel's civil definition of the person. The failure of her European Parliament initiative suggests that her thinking is in advance of its possible realization.

This article is an exploration of the ways in which maternal subjectivity is negotiated and defined in the context of the act or process of giving birth. As such, it is offered as a contribution to and discussion of recent feminist evaluation of childbirth management systems. Written from the partial perspective of my own experiences of pregnant and maternal embodiment, the article considers whether the ethic of the birth plan is a satisfactory representation of consumer needs and participation in contemporary (...) maternity care. By way of a selective personal account of various models of consumer-orientated and woman-centred childbirth management services that exist in Australia and New Zealand, I draw on ideas from feminist theories of corporeality and the dialogical tradition of social thought in order to rethink the ethical encounter between the labouring woman or consumer and her care provider or practitioner. (shrink)

This paper argues for the benefits of approaching the terrorist attacks executed by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway on 22 July 2011 from the perspective of Luce Irigaray’s philosophy. In Breivik’s right-wing manifesto 2083, he identifies the triumvirate cultural Marxism, Islam and feminism as the main culprits for Europe’s decay. Despite arguing for the superiority of the white European race, and the dangers of immigration and religious plurality for Europe’s future, Breivik denies the value of difference, be it sexual, cultural (...) or religious. This paper finds support in Irigaray’s philosophy when arguing that, in this respect, Breivik’s extremist ideology operates in alignment with Western metaphysics that posits the masculine European subject as ‘the lord of the earth’, who denies all differences other than the ones hailed by male, white, Christian supremacists. In Norway, the dangers that Breivik and his allies represent are real, given that academics are being targeted and threatened. (shrink)

The double‐blind peer‐review of manuscripts for potential publication is a longstanding tradition in the production of scholarship. Nursing has adopted this tradition to secure a place of legitimacy and authority for its scholarship amongst the other disciplines in the academy. However, despite its ubiquity and avowed utility, the peer‐review has not generally been the subject of much research let alone intense philosophical scrutiny and debate. This manuscript attempts such an engagement with a view to uncovering specific concerns about the essentially (...) conservative and sometimes restrictive effects the double‐blind peer‐review produces. Drawing on the deconstructionist writings of Derrida and his acolytes this paper attempts to dig beneath the surface mechanics of the double‐blind peer‐review and in so doing, expose its rather shaky philosophical foundations. It is written to open debate from others who too, have harboured doubts about its adequacy and supremacy as a technology in the production of (legitimate) knowledge. (shrink)