Patricia Huntington | Arizona State University (original) (raw)
Papers by Patricia Huntington
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 2020
Review of two books: (1) Rita M. Gross, Buddhism Beyond Gender; and (2) Jin Y. Park, Women a... more Review of two books:
(1) Rita M. Gross, Buddhism Beyond Gender; and
(2) Jin Y. Park, Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp.
Journal for the Pacific Association of the Continental Tradition 1.1 (2018), 2018
FOLLOW THE LINK ABOVE to the first volume of JPACT! Based on its radical view of the non-obstr... more FOLLOW THE LINK ABOVE to the first volume of JPACT!
Based on its radical view of the non-obstructed interpenetration of noumenon and phenomena, Huayan Buddhism develops a comparably richer understanding of interrelationality than does Heidegger. First, it overcomes a problematic tension in the early Heidegger between the positive quest for authenticity and the negative assessment of Mitsein. Second, it avoids two dualistic mistakes, the assertion of an authentic solitary self who is set apart from inauthentic others and the mischaracterization of being-with as a form of merging with the universe of another. The former obscures the noumenal reality of interpenetration, while the latter denies phenomenal difference and diversity. A liberating Mitdasein, as Huayan teaches, emerges neither through self-appropriation nor through self-denial but rather through the removal of mental and affective obstructions that engender artificial distance from or unnatural proximity to others.
Keywords: Heidegger, Huayan, Mitsein, Inter-relationality, authenticity, non-obstruction, in-betweenness (ningen), feminist relationality
Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 2019
Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 2017
By drawing on phenomenological notions, this paper offers a “middle way” reading of Bashō's trave... more By drawing on phenomenological notions, this paper offers a “middle way” reading of Bashō's travelogues that accentuates their religious, rather than merely aesthetical purpose, which is to transmit the Buddha Dharma. Two distinctive poetic traditions of Bashō interpretation exist: the Zen-inflected, monologic, and individualist tradition and the intertextual or dialogical interpretation. One way to reconcile these two strains in Bashō’s poetics is to see his haikai through the lens of mind-to-mind transmission of light. This “middle way” interpretation traces a double movement of phenomenological reduction through two travelogues: first, by showing how home departure entails freeing the mind of fixity and, second, by suggesting that mind-to-mind transmission removes the ambition to find refuge in peak experiences, just as it resists being reduced to parodic subversion of reigning cultural values. In the Buddhist lineage, the heart of transmission rests neither upon conservation nor upon rejection of poetic essences but, rather, lies in transforming haikai into medicine, which is efficacious for the process of awakening.
This draft is not currently scheduled for publication, as I intend to revise, rewrite, and submit... more This draft is not currently scheduled for publication, as I intend to revise, rewrite, and submit. I post it here for feedback and exchange. If and when there is a published version, it may contain some differences from this draft version in content or appearance, and this version may even contain some errors. The voice and frame of the argument will likely become modified and some mistakes will be corrected. Please contact me if you have suggestions or wish to cite this work.
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ABSTRACT
Dōgen and Yogācāra share the Buddhist insistence that karmically conditioned behavior ceases upon enlightenment. Enlightened activity unfolds in the here-and-now. Yet Dogen tends to delink the practice of awakening from that of analyzing one's karmic transmission. Dogen rightly breaks with the popular and vague narratival conception of karmic transmission that is embedded in a linear, continuous, unidirectional, and unenlightened view of serial time. By deconstructing the very desire for a narrative that stabilizes a permanent sense of self across a felt-continuum of time, Dogen shows that the awakened mind moves in all directions of time. Yet Dogen's relegating our sense of karmic transmission to a derivative, partial, and pre- or un-enlightened sense of time neglects a vital aspect of practice-realization. I will suggest that a non-linear and ante-narratival conception of karmic consciousness could enhance and correct for possible deficiencies in Dogen's model of practice-realization. By elaborating how an extensive reach into serial time is contained within the multidirectional reality of now-time, I hope to show that a practice of unraveling the knots of karmic propensities carries import not only prior to but in realizing ongoing awakening. Yogacara gives us tools to understand that we need a genuine extensive reach into serial time and especially the future in order to resist precisely those delusions that most occupied Dogen: spiritual complacency and reified conceptions of mind or Buddha-nature.
KEYWORDS Dōgen, Yogācāra, time, karmic conditioning, Uji
Without intending to fuel romantic fixation on Subcomandante Marcos, this paper underscores the n... more Without intending to fuel romantic fixation on Subcomandante Marcos, this paper underscores the necessity of a communicative-rhetorical praxis as a vital dimension of Zapatista insurgency. The practice of Zapatista insurgency reflects a profound understanding that indigenous efforts to gain a voice in the future of Mexican politics necessarily expose the ideological limits of neoliberalism, here understood not solely as a policy of economic development. Neoliberalism includes, first and foremost, a corresponding imaginary and fantastic story about the foundations of society in which the indigenous appear to be either backward or infantile. As a counterpoise to these distorting depictions, I argue, the Zapatistas find it imperative to amplify their own political imagination and to wage a poetic revolution.
CSP Newsletters 1999/2000, 1999
Two newsletters documenting events in the aftermath of the 1994 levantamiento zapatista. From 199... more Two newsletters documenting events in the aftermath of the 1994 levantamiento zapatista. From 1998 to 2004, I launched and directed the Chiapas Solidarity Project, a collaborative project with leaders in La Realidad, one of the caracoles or five centers of organization among Zapatista communities. I coordinated fund-raising for the Minister of Health to build sustainable health pharmacies in 3 communities in the Lacandon Jungle. CSP purchased 7000ofnon−expiredmedicinesat27000 of non-expired medicines at 2% market value for a shipment worth about 7000ofnon−expiredmedicinesat2200,000.00. Prior to launching that project, I was a member of the 1998 Tri-National Delegation for Human Rights run by the Mexico Solidarity Network.This was the first delegation after the 1994 uprising and the 1997 Acteal massacre. Eighty-six delegates visited thirty-four communities in fourteen municipalities to document humans rights abuses. I performed as translator for a group that interviewed the community in La Realidad.
1998 flyer, 1998
The Year of Bad Harvest: launching the Chiapas Solidarity Project.
Messages from Chiapas in the year 2000. Presentations by The Chiapas Solidarity Project, The Mex... more Messages from Chiapas in the year 2000. Presentations by The Chiapas Solidarity Project, The Mexico Solidarity Network, and The Chiapas Media Project at the Radical Philosophy Association.
Were I to write this essay today, I would write it differently. That is, I would not draw such a ... more Were I to write this essay today, I would write it differently. That is, I would not draw such a sharp distinction between cosmic awareness-sensibility and socio-historical life. The essay grew out of an invitation to respond to work on Leopoldo Zea, and I felt uneasy incorporating indigenous spiritual legacies into his historicist categories of existence. Nevertheless, the main thesis that colonialism produced spiritual deracination I still uphold.
This is a reflective essay based on my dawning realization that Zapatista insurgency not only opposed economic and political oppression but also issued in a struggle to overcome spiritual deracination. I contest two basic assumptions of much contemporary social theory: (1) that race and deracination are socio-cultural and not distinctly spiritual phenomena; and (2) that the central role played by dialogical accord in Zapatista communities can be understood without a spiritual conception of human existence. I propose that a spiritual understanding of three pivotal issues -- race, deracination, and dialogue or accord -- aptly captures the core intuitions that inform Zapatista insurgency.
In Rethinking Facticity, eds. Francois Raffoul and Eric Sean Nelson, 2008
Political Phenomenology: Essays in Memory of Petee Jung, 2016
This essay presses the need for developing a richer phenomenological description within feminist ... more This essay presses the need for developing a richer phenomenological description within feminist theory of the process whereby two different persons realize reciprocal recognition. A phenomenological examination of the implicit yet differing ontological assumptions that Benhabib and Young hold, reveals how both the dimensions of symmetry and asymmetry must operate in order to develop the expanded consciousness and affective empathy requisite to recognize another as a three-dimensional moral agent. Implicit in this process, I suggest, is a constructive rather than projective use of imagination. Relying on Kristeva, I sketch a picture of how imagination plays with both dimensions of sameness and difference in communicative interaction. That interplay may catalyze a genuine awakening to the irreducible realities of difference without projecting distorting stereotypes onto other social groups.
SUNY Series in the Social Sciences, Ed. Lenore Langsdorf
This chapter from my 1998 book explores what Tugendhat called the "missing link" between authenti... more This chapter from my 1998 book explores what Tugendhat called the "missing link" between authenticity and a publicly verifiable criterion for political praxis. It engages Reiner Shurmann's approach to symbol, Richard Wolin's critique of Heidegger's "politics of being," and Carol Bigwood's Irigarayan-inflected examination of masculinist imagery in the early Heidegger. Years later, I may not agree with all I wrote and new research has developed. Yet this chapter connects question of male fantasy to explorations of the missing link between theoria and praxis. The bibliography for this chapter can be found in separate document, "Bibliography to Ecstatic Subjects," also posted here.
Studies in Continental Thought, 1995
I argue that Heidegger de-ethicizes the Kierkegaardian categories of inauthentic life.
Feminist Interpretations of Martin Heidegger, eds. Nancy J. Holland and Patricia Huntington, 2001
Continental Philosophy Review, Nov 30, 2006
In this paper,
Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity, 1995
Martin J. Matustik and I advanced a new translation of Habermas's essay on Michael Theunissen. I... more Martin J. Matustik and I advanced a new translation of Habermas's essay on Michael Theunissen. It is published in Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity.
Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy, ed. Lewis R. Gordon, 1997
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 2020
Review of two books: (1) Rita M. Gross, Buddhism Beyond Gender; and (2) Jin Y. Park, Women a... more Review of two books:
(1) Rita M. Gross, Buddhism Beyond Gender; and
(2) Jin Y. Park, Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp.
Journal for the Pacific Association of the Continental Tradition 1.1 (2018), 2018
FOLLOW THE LINK ABOVE to the first volume of JPACT! Based on its radical view of the non-obstr... more FOLLOW THE LINK ABOVE to the first volume of JPACT!
Based on its radical view of the non-obstructed interpenetration of noumenon and phenomena, Huayan Buddhism develops a comparably richer understanding of interrelationality than does Heidegger. First, it overcomes a problematic tension in the early Heidegger between the positive quest for authenticity and the negative assessment of Mitsein. Second, it avoids two dualistic mistakes, the assertion of an authentic solitary self who is set apart from inauthentic others and the mischaracterization of being-with as a form of merging with the universe of another. The former obscures the noumenal reality of interpenetration, while the latter denies phenomenal difference and diversity. A liberating Mitdasein, as Huayan teaches, emerges neither through self-appropriation nor through self-denial but rather through the removal of mental and affective obstructions that engender artificial distance from or unnatural proximity to others.
Keywords: Heidegger, Huayan, Mitsein, Inter-relationality, authenticity, non-obstruction, in-betweenness (ningen), feminist relationality
Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 2019
Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 2017
By drawing on phenomenological notions, this paper offers a “middle way” reading of Bashō's trave... more By drawing on phenomenological notions, this paper offers a “middle way” reading of Bashō's travelogues that accentuates their religious, rather than merely aesthetical purpose, which is to transmit the Buddha Dharma. Two distinctive poetic traditions of Bashō interpretation exist: the Zen-inflected, monologic, and individualist tradition and the intertextual or dialogical interpretation. One way to reconcile these two strains in Bashō’s poetics is to see his haikai through the lens of mind-to-mind transmission of light. This “middle way” interpretation traces a double movement of phenomenological reduction through two travelogues: first, by showing how home departure entails freeing the mind of fixity and, second, by suggesting that mind-to-mind transmission removes the ambition to find refuge in peak experiences, just as it resists being reduced to parodic subversion of reigning cultural values. In the Buddhist lineage, the heart of transmission rests neither upon conservation nor upon rejection of poetic essences but, rather, lies in transforming haikai into medicine, which is efficacious for the process of awakening.
This draft is not currently scheduled for publication, as I intend to revise, rewrite, and submit... more This draft is not currently scheduled for publication, as I intend to revise, rewrite, and submit. I post it here for feedback and exchange. If and when there is a published version, it may contain some differences from this draft version in content or appearance, and this version may even contain some errors. The voice and frame of the argument will likely become modified and some mistakes will be corrected. Please contact me if you have suggestions or wish to cite this work.
- - - - - - -
ABSTRACT
Dōgen and Yogācāra share the Buddhist insistence that karmically conditioned behavior ceases upon enlightenment. Enlightened activity unfolds in the here-and-now. Yet Dogen tends to delink the practice of awakening from that of analyzing one's karmic transmission. Dogen rightly breaks with the popular and vague narratival conception of karmic transmission that is embedded in a linear, continuous, unidirectional, and unenlightened view of serial time. By deconstructing the very desire for a narrative that stabilizes a permanent sense of self across a felt-continuum of time, Dogen shows that the awakened mind moves in all directions of time. Yet Dogen's relegating our sense of karmic transmission to a derivative, partial, and pre- or un-enlightened sense of time neglects a vital aspect of practice-realization. I will suggest that a non-linear and ante-narratival conception of karmic consciousness could enhance and correct for possible deficiencies in Dogen's model of practice-realization. By elaborating how an extensive reach into serial time is contained within the multidirectional reality of now-time, I hope to show that a practice of unraveling the knots of karmic propensities carries import not only prior to but in realizing ongoing awakening. Yogacara gives us tools to understand that we need a genuine extensive reach into serial time and especially the future in order to resist precisely those delusions that most occupied Dogen: spiritual complacency and reified conceptions of mind or Buddha-nature.
KEYWORDS Dōgen, Yogācāra, time, karmic conditioning, Uji
Without intending to fuel romantic fixation on Subcomandante Marcos, this paper underscores the n... more Without intending to fuel romantic fixation on Subcomandante Marcos, this paper underscores the necessity of a communicative-rhetorical praxis as a vital dimension of Zapatista insurgency. The practice of Zapatista insurgency reflects a profound understanding that indigenous efforts to gain a voice in the future of Mexican politics necessarily expose the ideological limits of neoliberalism, here understood not solely as a policy of economic development. Neoliberalism includes, first and foremost, a corresponding imaginary and fantastic story about the foundations of society in which the indigenous appear to be either backward or infantile. As a counterpoise to these distorting depictions, I argue, the Zapatistas find it imperative to amplify their own political imagination and to wage a poetic revolution.
CSP Newsletters 1999/2000, 1999
Two newsletters documenting events in the aftermath of the 1994 levantamiento zapatista. From 199... more Two newsletters documenting events in the aftermath of the 1994 levantamiento zapatista. From 1998 to 2004, I launched and directed the Chiapas Solidarity Project, a collaborative project with leaders in La Realidad, one of the caracoles or five centers of organization among Zapatista communities. I coordinated fund-raising for the Minister of Health to build sustainable health pharmacies in 3 communities in the Lacandon Jungle. CSP purchased 7000ofnon−expiredmedicinesat27000 of non-expired medicines at 2% market value for a shipment worth about 7000ofnon−expiredmedicinesat2200,000.00. Prior to launching that project, I was a member of the 1998 Tri-National Delegation for Human Rights run by the Mexico Solidarity Network.This was the first delegation after the 1994 uprising and the 1997 Acteal massacre. Eighty-six delegates visited thirty-four communities in fourteen municipalities to document humans rights abuses. I performed as translator for a group that interviewed the community in La Realidad.
1998 flyer, 1998
The Year of Bad Harvest: launching the Chiapas Solidarity Project.
Messages from Chiapas in the year 2000. Presentations by The Chiapas Solidarity Project, The Mex... more Messages from Chiapas in the year 2000. Presentations by The Chiapas Solidarity Project, The Mexico Solidarity Network, and The Chiapas Media Project at the Radical Philosophy Association.
Were I to write this essay today, I would write it differently. That is, I would not draw such a ... more Were I to write this essay today, I would write it differently. That is, I would not draw such a sharp distinction between cosmic awareness-sensibility and socio-historical life. The essay grew out of an invitation to respond to work on Leopoldo Zea, and I felt uneasy incorporating indigenous spiritual legacies into his historicist categories of existence. Nevertheless, the main thesis that colonialism produced spiritual deracination I still uphold.
This is a reflective essay based on my dawning realization that Zapatista insurgency not only opposed economic and political oppression but also issued in a struggle to overcome spiritual deracination. I contest two basic assumptions of much contemporary social theory: (1) that race and deracination are socio-cultural and not distinctly spiritual phenomena; and (2) that the central role played by dialogical accord in Zapatista communities can be understood without a spiritual conception of human existence. I propose that a spiritual understanding of three pivotal issues -- race, deracination, and dialogue or accord -- aptly captures the core intuitions that inform Zapatista insurgency.
In Rethinking Facticity, eds. Francois Raffoul and Eric Sean Nelson, 2008
Political Phenomenology: Essays in Memory of Petee Jung, 2016
This essay presses the need for developing a richer phenomenological description within feminist ... more This essay presses the need for developing a richer phenomenological description within feminist theory of the process whereby two different persons realize reciprocal recognition. A phenomenological examination of the implicit yet differing ontological assumptions that Benhabib and Young hold, reveals how both the dimensions of symmetry and asymmetry must operate in order to develop the expanded consciousness and affective empathy requisite to recognize another as a three-dimensional moral agent. Implicit in this process, I suggest, is a constructive rather than projective use of imagination. Relying on Kristeva, I sketch a picture of how imagination plays with both dimensions of sameness and difference in communicative interaction. That interplay may catalyze a genuine awakening to the irreducible realities of difference without projecting distorting stereotypes onto other social groups.
SUNY Series in the Social Sciences, Ed. Lenore Langsdorf
This chapter from my 1998 book explores what Tugendhat called the "missing link" between authenti... more This chapter from my 1998 book explores what Tugendhat called the "missing link" between authenticity and a publicly verifiable criterion for political praxis. It engages Reiner Shurmann's approach to symbol, Richard Wolin's critique of Heidegger's "politics of being," and Carol Bigwood's Irigarayan-inflected examination of masculinist imagery in the early Heidegger. Years later, I may not agree with all I wrote and new research has developed. Yet this chapter connects question of male fantasy to explorations of the missing link between theoria and praxis. The bibliography for this chapter can be found in separate document, "Bibliography to Ecstatic Subjects," also posted here.
Studies in Continental Thought, 1995
I argue that Heidegger de-ethicizes the Kierkegaardian categories of inauthentic life.
Feminist Interpretations of Martin Heidegger, eds. Nancy J. Holland and Patricia Huntington, 2001
Continental Philosophy Review, Nov 30, 2006
In this paper,
Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity, 1995
Martin J. Matustik and I advanced a new translation of Habermas's essay on Michael Theunissen. I... more Martin J. Matustik and I advanced a new translation of Habermas's essay on Michael Theunissen. It is published in Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity.
Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy, ed. Lewis R. Gordon, 1997
For historical memory, here is an article by Christopher Hayes, in his Chicago days, covering the... more For historical memory, here is an article by Christopher Hayes, in his Chicago days, covering the Brennan Lecture I organized when I was at Loyola University in Chicago. On November 22, 2002, Habermas and Rorty held public dialogue on "Rationality and Universalism."
Review of Calvin O. Schrag's The Self After Postmodernity (New Haven and London: Yale University ... more Review of Calvin O. Schrag's The Self After Postmodernity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997).
This is a review essay on Ramsey Eric Ramsey's monograph, The Long Path to Nearness: A Contributi... more This is a review essay on Ramsey Eric Ramsey's monograph, The Long Path to Nearness: A Contribution to a Corporeal Philosophy of Communication and the Groundwork for an Ethics of Relief
Here is the TOC and Introduction I to Feminist Interpretations of Martin Heidegger. I constructe... more Here is the TOC and Introduction I to Feminist Interpretations of Martin Heidegger. I constructed the first history of the feminist reception of Heidegger, a story inevitably limited, even partial, yet above all necessarily a prelude that is destined to be deconstructed and overtaken by richer stories that can only emerge after one has begun.