Textures of Light: Vision and Touch in Irigaray, Levinas, and Merleau-Ponty (review)

Abstract

In her book Textures of Light: Vision and Touch in Irigaray, Levinas and Merleau-Ponty (1998), Cathryn Vasseleu takes issue with Martin Jay's thesis in his expansive volume Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth Century French Thought (1994). Vasseleu persuasively argues that rather than denigrate vision, French theorists--Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Irigaray--are trying to reconceive of vision in more productive terms. Vasseleu argues that Irigaray goes further than either Merleau-Ponty or Levinas towards developing an alternative theory of vision by developing an alternative vision of light. Primarily working with Irigaray's engagement with Merleau-Ponty and with Levinas in An Ethics of Sexual Difference (1993), Vasseleu shows how Irigaray develops a theory of what she calls the texture of light. Rather than reduce vision to touch, which is one of her (debatable) criticisms of Merleau-Ponty, on Vasseleu's reading, Irigaray emphasizes the touch of light on the eye. It is not, then, that vision and touch are not separate senses; but rather that vision is dependent upon the sense of touch.