Feminist Interpretations and Challenges (original) (raw)
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Translating Principle into Practice: On Derrida and the Terms of Feminism
Journal of Speculative Philosophy SPEP Supplement 29, no. 3 (2015): 403-14.
One of Derrida’s most significant insights concerns the irreducibility yet interdependence of unconditioned ideal and conditioned actuality. First, relying especially on the concept of hospitality, I argue that this insight allows for the development of a powerful account of ethical and political action. Second, I show the usefulness of this account for feminist critical practice, especially with regard to the ideal of inclusion and the concept of “woman.” Third, and finally, I explore how this insight could guide feminist action in relation to two specific situations: feminism’s relations to transgender issues and to reproductive freedom.
AN INTRODUCTION TO FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM: AT A BRIEF GLANCE
A type of literary criticism that became a dominant force in Western Literary studies in the late 1970 ‟ s, feminist theory more broadly conceived was applied to linguistic and literary matters. Since the early 1980 ‟ s, feminist literary criticism has developed and diversified in a number of ways and is now characterized by a global perspectives. It is nonetheless important to understand differences among the interests and assumptions of French, British and North America,(United States and Canada), feminist critics writing during the 1970 „ s, and early 1980 „ s, given the context to which their works shaped the evolution of contemporary feminist critical discourse.
On Gender Neutrality: Derrida and Transfeminism in Conversation
PhiloSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism, 2017
There is already a long history of conversation between feminism and deconstruction, feminist theorists and Derrida or Derrideans. That conver- sation has been by turns fraught and constructive. While some of these interactions have occurred in queer feminism, to date little has been done to stage an engagement between deconstruction and transfeminism. Naysayers might think that transfeminism is too recent and too identitarian a discourse to meaningfully interact with Derrida’s legacy. On the other hand, perhaps Derrida’s work was too embedded in second wave feminism, and in some cases implicit misogyny and transphobia, to meet transfeminism on its own playing field. And yet, I think both suspicions shortchange these discourses. In what follows, I stage a conversation between Derrida and two writers working in the area of transfeminism: Paisley Currah and Julia Serano. I explore, in particular, how their conceptions of gender neutrality or gender pluralism are complementary and together change the so-called “question of woman” from a philosophical and political perspective.
of tracking the errancy (another crucial term in Spanos' lexicon) a given text betrays. In the age of "surface" and "distant" reading, of the revival of "thin description," of the retreat into apolitical post-critical enumeration, A Spanos Reader reminds us that the task of the critic is to remain attentive to the secular imperative, that worldly and profane space of critique. It is to acknowledge, in Spanos' own words, "the full obligation to think the question of the human in an absolute sense: every single minute of one's waking life" (674). This, indeed, is criticism with teeth.
Women's Studies International Quarterly, 1978
Synopsis--This is a taped transcript of a talk given from notes. I have edited lightly. I wanted to preserve the informality and the bravado. The detail of my present research concerns itself with what I propose here in tentative and broad outline.