elaine stavro - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by elaine stavro

Routledge eBooks, Sep 25, 2023

Routledge eBooks, Sep 21, 2023

Routledge eBooks, Sep 21, 2023

Routledge eBooks, Sep 21, 2023

Routledge eBooks, Sep 21, 2023

Theory and Event, 2014

In light of a renewed interest in communism, Merleau-Ponty's rethinking of the potentials, pr... more In light of a renewed interest in communism, Merleau-Ponty's rethinking of the potentials, problems and traumas of communism's past is worth revisiting. Far from Humanism and Terror being an apology for Stalinism as most critics assume, I will show how Merleau-Ponty's work contributes to a rethinking of revolutionary agency. Blending fiction and philosophy, supplementing dialectical Marxism with insights from Machiavelli and existential phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty engages contemporary communist critics and apologists. He looks at the potential of revolutionary violence to remake the world, and he explores the risk of being permanently involved in terror, thereby sabotaging communism's goals.

McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, May 11, 2018

Canadian Journal of Political Science, Jun 1, 2007

.Identity politics have been much maligned by the Left as politically divisive and philosophicall... more .Identity politics have been much maligned by the Left as politically divisive and philosophically untenable. But the need for identification in the process of countering demeaned identities and fostering counter-hegemonic projects has been underestimated by poststructuralist critics. Good at dismantling identities and deconstructing existing strategies of inclusion, the poststructuralists are not particularly helpful in thinking through forms of subjectivity and/or collective action that would contribute to coalition building. Beauvoir provides a worthy model for coalitional politics. Her theory of relational subjectivity avoids essentialism and fosters collaboration, if that work is premised upon connected existences, rather than identity. Her theory of alterity, or Othering, acknowledges power differentials and accommodates both cultural and economic forces of oppression, moving away from static, centralized and binary relations of power that have become associated with second-wave feminism and conventional Marxism.Résumé. La politique identitaire a été largement décriée par la gauche qui l'accuse de créer des dissensions et d'être philosophiquement insoutenable. Pourtant, le besoin d'identification dans le processus de soutien des identités dévaluées et de promotion de projets anti-hégémoniques a été sous-estimé par la critique post-structuraliste. Doués pour la déconstruction des identités et le démantèlement des stratégies d'inclusion, les post-structuralistes ont moins de talent pour concevoir des formes de subjectivité ou d'action collective qui contribueraient à la construction de coalitions. Simone de Beauvoir fournit un modèle précieux de politique de coalition. Sa théorie de la subjectivité relationnelle évite l'essentialisme et encourage la collaboration, si cet effort est basé sur des existences liées les unes aux autres plutôt que sur l'identité. Sa théorie de l'altérité reconnaît les différentiels de pouvoir et tient compte des forces oppressives, à la fois culturelles et économiques, abandonnant ainsi les rapports de pouvoir statiques, centralisés et binaires qui ont été associés avec le féminisme “ deuxième vague ” et le marxisme conventionnel.

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Sciences, Mar 26, 2017

European Journal of Women's Studies, Aug 1, 1999

For many years poststructuralist feminists have denounced Simone de Beauvoir as a `universal huma... more For many years poststructuralist feminists have denounced Simone de Beauvoir as a `universal humanist' who denies sexual difference and inscribes woman in a masculine discourse. Returning to the original exchanges between de Beauvoir and the French feminists of difference, where this dismissive attitude began, it is seen that de Beauvoir circulates in their discourse as representative of a bygone eraan embodiment of all that has been surpassed. Their criticisms of de Beauvoir prove for the most part, glib and disingenuous and not grounded in a careful reading of The Second Sex. In this article the author defends de Beauvoir from their charges of universalism, phallocentrism and being a dupe of Sartre. Her particular form of universal humanism is not `indifferent to difference', but produces historically and socially nuanced insights. De Beauvoir does not valorize a Sartrean rational masculine subject as a model for feminist struggles, rather she theorizes an embodied, relational, situated subject. Furthermore, her theory of Otherness is able to accommodate the psychic register of subjectivity without psychologizing the socioeconomic or political world, a shortcoming of her French poststructuralist opponents.

Feminist Theory, Aug 1, 2000

In this re-reading of The Second Sex, the author argues that Beauvoir transgressively employs Sar... more In this re-reading of The Second Sex, the author argues that Beauvoir transgressively employs Sartre’s universal binary categories of Being and Nothingnessin her effort to account for the economic, political, cultural and psychological conditions of women’s situation. In doing so, she challenges Sartre’s theory of radical ontological freedom and concretizes his abstract philosophic voice, thereby avoiding their rationalist and voluntarist implications. Contesting Beauvoir’s feminist critics, who saw her as emotionally and philosophically dependent on Sartre and her work as an amalgam of Sartrean existentialism and feminist insights, the author maintains that Beauvoir had her own independent project – to transform Sartrean existentialism to make it contextually sensitive. Distancing herself from Sartre’s theory of freedom and its valorization of masculine experience and disembodied consciousnesses, Beauvoir’s theory of situational freedom and embodied subjectivity draws her closer to the existentialism of Merleau-Ponty.

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Sciences, 2017

A two-types, discrete-time population model with finite, constant size is constructed, allowing f... more A two-types, discrete-time population model with finite, constant size is constructed, allowing for a general form of frequency-dependent selection and skewed offspring distribution. Selection is defined based on the idea that individuals first choose a (random) number of potential parents from the previous generation and then, from the selected pool, they inherit the type of the fittest parent. The probability distribution function of the number of potential parents per individual thus parametrises entirely the selection mechanism. Using duality, weak convergence is then proved both for the allele frequency process of the selectively weak type and for the population's ancestral process. The scaling limits are, respectively, a two-types Ξ-Fleming-Viot jump-diffusion process with frequency-dependent selection, and a branching-coalescing process with general branching and simultaneous multiple collisions. Duality also leads to a characterisation of the probability of extinction of the selectively weak allele, in terms of the ancestral process' ergodic properties.

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Sciences, 2017

Feminist Theory, 2000

In this re-reading of The Second Sex, the author argues that Beauvoir transgressively employs Sar... more In this re-reading of The Second Sex, the author argues that Beauvoir transgressively employs Sartre’s universal binary categories of Being and Nothingnessin her effort to account for the economic, political, cultural and psychological conditions of women’s situation. In doing so, she challenges Sartre’s theory of radical ontological freedom and concretizes his abstract philosophic voice, thereby avoiding their rationalist and voluntarist implications. Contesting Beauvoir’s feminist critics, who saw her as emotionally and philosophically dependent on Sartre and her work as an amalgam of Sartrean existentialism and feminist insights, the author maintains that Beauvoir had her own independent project – to transform Sartrean existentialism to make it contextually sensitive. Distancing herself from Sartre’s theory of freedom and its valorization of masculine experience and disembodied consciousnesses, Beauvoir’s theory of situational freedom and embodied subjectivity draws her closer to...

Contemporary Political Theory, 2018

Yes, this book is based upon a single sentence: Beauvoir's renowned sentence: 'one is not born: o... more Yes, this book is based upon a single sentence: Beauvoir's renowned sentence: 'one is not born: one becomes (a) woman.' Yet it manages to spawn nineteen articles that cover multiple themes from numerous perspectives and disciplinary interests. Its four sections, Intellectual History; History of Scandal; the Philosopher's Debate; the Labor of Translation, include interventions on the sex/gender debates (Karen Offen, Judith Butler, Bonnie Mann, Meagan Burke), diverse philosophical interpretations of Beauvoir, as well as concrete and convincing demonstrations of how poorly translated passages promote misunderstandings (Toril Moi, Margaret Simons, Nancy Bauer). Since it is impossible to do justice to the breadth and wealth of this text in a short review, I have chosen to focus upon a few of the articles that I found particularly interesting. The brilliance of the collection lies in its interdisciplinary and meticulous analysis of this single sentence. Needless to say, its multiple interpretations don't fit together, but provide compelling arguments that can't be easily dismissed. The new translation of The Second Sex in 2011 initiated a fervent debate amongst feminists. In dropping the article 'a' from Parshley's original English translation, Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier believed they were honoring Beauvoir's feminist legacy. They reasoned 'this best captures women as an institution, a construct, a concept; femininity determined and defined by society, culture and history' (p. 281). The presence of the 'a' stresses the existential tradition that one is free to choose irrespective of one's situation. Bonnie Mann's 'Beauvoir against Objectivism' provides an excellent introduction to the volume by offering a concise summary of Beauvoir's philosophic concerns, which furthers the project of thinking philosophically about the tensions arising from the translation of this sentence. Unlike Butler, whose discursive theory swings towards objectivism, Beauvoir's notion of embodied engagement avoids subjectivism and rationalism, without lapsing into objectivism or materialism. Mann brings Butler's performative theory of gender into conversation with

Hypatia Reviews Online

Steeped in Beauvoirian thinking, Lori Jo Marso spends little time defending her reading of Simone... more Steeped in Beauvoirian thinking, Lori Jo Marso spends little time defending her reading of Simone de Beauvoir. In setting Beauvoir into conversations with other theorists-Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, and contemporary filmmakers-she avoids the theoretical sparring that often accompanies works on Beauvoir. Instead she uses the problematic of "freedom as an encounter" to stage very compelling and engaging conversations among enemies, allies, and friends. Marso's coined phrase "freedom as an encounter" is an apt one, since it manages to accommodate the spontaneity of the event as well as acknowledge the structures (socioeconomic relations, political institutions, cultural constructs, and historical context) within which Beauvoirian freedom arises. Marso concentrates on micro-political affective relations and spends little time exploring the macro structures of historical existence. As a result, she produces a different Beauvoir from the one most of us are familiar with, but a Beauvoir who is highly readable and relevant to contemporary theoretical debates.

Routledge eBooks, Sep 25, 2023

Routledge eBooks, Sep 21, 2023

Routledge eBooks, Sep 21, 2023

Routledge eBooks, Sep 21, 2023

Routledge eBooks, Sep 21, 2023

Theory and Event, 2014

In light of a renewed interest in communism, Merleau-Ponty's rethinking of the potentials, pr... more In light of a renewed interest in communism, Merleau-Ponty's rethinking of the potentials, problems and traumas of communism's past is worth revisiting. Far from Humanism and Terror being an apology for Stalinism as most critics assume, I will show how Merleau-Ponty's work contributes to a rethinking of revolutionary agency. Blending fiction and philosophy, supplementing dialectical Marxism with insights from Machiavelli and existential phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty engages contemporary communist critics and apologists. He looks at the potential of revolutionary violence to remake the world, and he explores the risk of being permanently involved in terror, thereby sabotaging communism's goals.

McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, May 11, 2018

Canadian Journal of Political Science, Jun 1, 2007

.Identity politics have been much maligned by the Left as politically divisive and philosophicall... more .Identity politics have been much maligned by the Left as politically divisive and philosophically untenable. But the need for identification in the process of countering demeaned identities and fostering counter-hegemonic projects has been underestimated by poststructuralist critics. Good at dismantling identities and deconstructing existing strategies of inclusion, the poststructuralists are not particularly helpful in thinking through forms of subjectivity and/or collective action that would contribute to coalition building. Beauvoir provides a worthy model for coalitional politics. Her theory of relational subjectivity avoids essentialism and fosters collaboration, if that work is premised upon connected existences, rather than identity. Her theory of alterity, or Othering, acknowledges power differentials and accommodates both cultural and economic forces of oppression, moving away from static, centralized and binary relations of power that have become associated with second-wave feminism and conventional Marxism.Résumé. La politique identitaire a été largement décriée par la gauche qui l'accuse de créer des dissensions et d'être philosophiquement insoutenable. Pourtant, le besoin d'identification dans le processus de soutien des identités dévaluées et de promotion de projets anti-hégémoniques a été sous-estimé par la critique post-structuraliste. Doués pour la déconstruction des identités et le démantèlement des stratégies d'inclusion, les post-structuralistes ont moins de talent pour concevoir des formes de subjectivité ou d'action collective qui contribueraient à la construction de coalitions. Simone de Beauvoir fournit un modèle précieux de politique de coalition. Sa théorie de la subjectivité relationnelle évite l'essentialisme et encourage la collaboration, si cet effort est basé sur des existences liées les unes aux autres plutôt que sur l'identité. Sa théorie de l'altérité reconnaît les différentiels de pouvoir et tient compte des forces oppressives, à la fois culturelles et économiques, abandonnant ainsi les rapports de pouvoir statiques, centralisés et binaires qui ont été associés avec le féminisme “ deuxième vague ” et le marxisme conventionnel.

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Sciences, Mar 26, 2017

European Journal of Women's Studies, Aug 1, 1999

For many years poststructuralist feminists have denounced Simone de Beauvoir as a `universal huma... more For many years poststructuralist feminists have denounced Simone de Beauvoir as a `universal humanist' who denies sexual difference and inscribes woman in a masculine discourse. Returning to the original exchanges between de Beauvoir and the French feminists of difference, where this dismissive attitude began, it is seen that de Beauvoir circulates in their discourse as representative of a bygone eraan embodiment of all that has been surpassed. Their criticisms of de Beauvoir prove for the most part, glib and disingenuous and not grounded in a careful reading of The Second Sex. In this article the author defends de Beauvoir from their charges of universalism, phallocentrism and being a dupe of Sartre. Her particular form of universal humanism is not `indifferent to difference', but produces historically and socially nuanced insights. De Beauvoir does not valorize a Sartrean rational masculine subject as a model for feminist struggles, rather she theorizes an embodied, relational, situated subject. Furthermore, her theory of Otherness is able to accommodate the psychic register of subjectivity without psychologizing the socioeconomic or political world, a shortcoming of her French poststructuralist opponents.

Feminist Theory, Aug 1, 2000

In this re-reading of The Second Sex, the author argues that Beauvoir transgressively employs Sar... more In this re-reading of The Second Sex, the author argues that Beauvoir transgressively employs Sartre’s universal binary categories of Being and Nothingnessin her effort to account for the economic, political, cultural and psychological conditions of women’s situation. In doing so, she challenges Sartre’s theory of radical ontological freedom and concretizes his abstract philosophic voice, thereby avoiding their rationalist and voluntarist implications. Contesting Beauvoir’s feminist critics, who saw her as emotionally and philosophically dependent on Sartre and her work as an amalgam of Sartrean existentialism and feminist insights, the author maintains that Beauvoir had her own independent project – to transform Sartrean existentialism to make it contextually sensitive. Distancing herself from Sartre’s theory of freedom and its valorization of masculine experience and disembodied consciousnesses, Beauvoir’s theory of situational freedom and embodied subjectivity draws her closer to the existentialism of Merleau-Ponty.

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Sciences, 2017

A two-types, discrete-time population model with finite, constant size is constructed, allowing f... more A two-types, discrete-time population model with finite, constant size is constructed, allowing for a general form of frequency-dependent selection and skewed offspring distribution. Selection is defined based on the idea that individuals first choose a (random) number of potential parents from the previous generation and then, from the selected pool, they inherit the type of the fittest parent. The probability distribution function of the number of potential parents per individual thus parametrises entirely the selection mechanism. Using duality, weak convergence is then proved both for the allele frequency process of the selectively weak type and for the population's ancestral process. The scaling limits are, respectively, a two-types Ξ-Fleming-Viot jump-diffusion process with frequency-dependent selection, and a branching-coalescing process with general branching and simultaneous multiple collisions. Duality also leads to a characterisation of the probability of extinction of the selectively weak allele, in terms of the ancestral process' ergodic properties.

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Sciences, 2017

Feminist Theory, 2000

In this re-reading of The Second Sex, the author argues that Beauvoir transgressively employs Sar... more In this re-reading of The Second Sex, the author argues that Beauvoir transgressively employs Sartre’s universal binary categories of Being and Nothingnessin her effort to account for the economic, political, cultural and psychological conditions of women’s situation. In doing so, she challenges Sartre’s theory of radical ontological freedom and concretizes his abstract philosophic voice, thereby avoiding their rationalist and voluntarist implications. Contesting Beauvoir’s feminist critics, who saw her as emotionally and philosophically dependent on Sartre and her work as an amalgam of Sartrean existentialism and feminist insights, the author maintains that Beauvoir had her own independent project – to transform Sartrean existentialism to make it contextually sensitive. Distancing herself from Sartre’s theory of freedom and its valorization of masculine experience and disembodied consciousnesses, Beauvoir’s theory of situational freedom and embodied subjectivity draws her closer to...

Contemporary Political Theory, 2018

Yes, this book is based upon a single sentence: Beauvoir's renowned sentence: 'one is not born: o... more Yes, this book is based upon a single sentence: Beauvoir's renowned sentence: 'one is not born: one becomes (a) woman.' Yet it manages to spawn nineteen articles that cover multiple themes from numerous perspectives and disciplinary interests. Its four sections, Intellectual History; History of Scandal; the Philosopher's Debate; the Labor of Translation, include interventions on the sex/gender debates (Karen Offen, Judith Butler, Bonnie Mann, Meagan Burke), diverse philosophical interpretations of Beauvoir, as well as concrete and convincing demonstrations of how poorly translated passages promote misunderstandings (Toril Moi, Margaret Simons, Nancy Bauer). Since it is impossible to do justice to the breadth and wealth of this text in a short review, I have chosen to focus upon a few of the articles that I found particularly interesting. The brilliance of the collection lies in its interdisciplinary and meticulous analysis of this single sentence. Needless to say, its multiple interpretations don't fit together, but provide compelling arguments that can't be easily dismissed. The new translation of The Second Sex in 2011 initiated a fervent debate amongst feminists. In dropping the article 'a' from Parshley's original English translation, Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier believed they were honoring Beauvoir's feminist legacy. They reasoned 'this best captures women as an institution, a construct, a concept; femininity determined and defined by society, culture and history' (p. 281). The presence of the 'a' stresses the existential tradition that one is free to choose irrespective of one's situation. Bonnie Mann's 'Beauvoir against Objectivism' provides an excellent introduction to the volume by offering a concise summary of Beauvoir's philosophic concerns, which furthers the project of thinking philosophically about the tensions arising from the translation of this sentence. Unlike Butler, whose discursive theory swings towards objectivism, Beauvoir's notion of embodied engagement avoids subjectivism and rationalism, without lapsing into objectivism or materialism. Mann brings Butler's performative theory of gender into conversation with

Hypatia Reviews Online

Steeped in Beauvoirian thinking, Lori Jo Marso spends little time defending her reading of Simone... more Steeped in Beauvoirian thinking, Lori Jo Marso spends little time defending her reading of Simone de Beauvoir. In setting Beauvoir into conversations with other theorists-Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, and contemporary filmmakers-she avoids the theoretical sparring that often accompanies works on Beauvoir. Instead she uses the problematic of "freedom as an encounter" to stage very compelling and engaging conversations among enemies, allies, and friends. Marso's coined phrase "freedom as an encounter" is an apt one, since it manages to accommodate the spontaneity of the event as well as acknowledge the structures (socioeconomic relations, political institutions, cultural constructs, and historical context) within which Beauvoirian freedom arises. Marso concentrates on micro-political affective relations and spends little time exploring the macro structures of historical existence. As a result, she produces a different Beauvoir from the one most of us are familiar with, but a Beauvoir who is highly readable and relevant to contemporary theoretical debates.