Irigaray Research Articles

Sobre mascaradas y disfraces en “Los celosos” de Silvina Ocampo

In this article, I will analyze the short story “Los celosos” (1988) by the Argentine writer Silvina Ocampo. In this story, the protagonist is a woman named Irma Peinate who uses a great deal of wigs, false eyelashes, high heels, and makeup to satisfy her husband. One day, her husband sees her without any accessories and does not recognize her. I propose that the sacrifice the woman undergoes is a kind of “masquerade” of femininity. This masquerade is to be accepted by her husband, but also by a society that aspires to the prototype of European beauty. The theories put forward by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1953), Luce Irigaray in The Sex Which is Not One (1985), and “Masquerade Reconsidered: Further Thoughts on the Female Spectator” (1989) by Mary Anne Doane have been central to examining the concept of “feminine masquerade.”

Bacterial Sex and Death: Darwirigaray and Life Death

This article discusses the New Materialist interest in biology and agency, drawing on Elizabeth Grosz's Becoming Undone, a work that provides a feminist ontology of life based on sexual difference. Grosz presents a ‘cross-fertilized’ reading of Charles Darwin and Luce Irigaray, placing them in what she calls the vitalist philosophy of ‘the question of life’. In order to conceptualize life, she posits sexual reproduction as the philosophical essence of life in terms of the maximalization of creativity, productivity (overabundance) and diversity. In this context the article contrasts this vision with Jacques Derrida's reading, in Life Death, of the notion of life based on sexual reproduction in François Jacob's The Logic of Life, with particular attention to Jacob's discussions of sexual reproduction and death. Read in the light of Derrida's insights, Grosz's deployment of this vitalist discourse of infinite productivity necessarily misses complexity in the notion of life that she develops.

The Evergrowing Map A Fluid Account on Cartography

Geography and cartography lay in the intersection between two knowledges, namely physics and geometry. In his book La naissance de la physique dans le texte de Lucrèce, Michel Serres shows how geometry – and the consequent static model of reality, on which cartography is traditionally based on – originated from the mechanics of fluid, as fluid was, in the atomistic philosophy, the process of agglomeration and dissolution of things made by atoms. In the last two decades, thinkers like Michel Serres, Tim Ingold, Luce Irigaray and others, have raised awareness on the possibility of conceiving reality on a fluidity based model, in order to better explain the complex, moiré, variety of our experience of the world. In front of the problems raised by the rapid changes happening in the physical and biological realm, the model of the world as a static plane on which object are situated and experienced is no longer sustainable, because it is unable to describe and orient human being between the emerging characters of life on earth. A new sensibility to acquire orientation in the multi-faced and multi-layered world goes hand in hand with the one of a new geographical and cartographical description of physical reality. Through the concept of evergrowing map this article aims to outline a cartographical strategy of orientation through a fluid conception of the world, based on multilayered representations of the territory rooted in multiple relations weaved by human inhabiting the world.

Of Women Who Move Forward: Sonia Rykiel’s ‘démode’

Through the central concept of movement, interpreted in three different ways, this article delves into the life and work of French fashion designer and author Sonia Rykiel, who treated fashion design as a form of transmedial écriture. Rykiel’s unruly and innovative concept of the ‘démode’ was launched in the context of a generational and relational movement of resistance against authority, liberating women from the changing diktats of the fashion industry (breaking out of generational hierarchies and frameworks of fashionable time). Secondly, it was an embodied and feminist movement, a democratization of fashion enabling the physical mobility of women who wore her skirts with undone hems, as well as reversible, adaptable jersey sweaters with exterior seams, central components of the démode concept. The démode also allows for a contextualization of Rykiel’s work with regards to the notions of écriture féminine and female pleasure as expressed by French feminists of her day, including Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Antoinette Fouque of the MLF (Mouvement de la Libération des Femmes). As such it is a breaking free of patriarchal structures, including garment construction, as well as breaking free of the masculinist ’68 revolution. Finally, the movement between different media, from garments to writing and “written garments” (transmediality) is analyzed as an artistic statement, expressing a desire to be both naked/ blank page as well as to write and to dress oneself.

Восстановление женственности в городах, подвергшихся воздействию войны: женская активность, пространственнaя субверсия и лингвистическое сопротивление в литературе, созданной авторами-женщинами

This article examines the staging and coding of femininity in literary works focused on cities during wartime, authored by women. Drawing on Judith Butler’s reading of Luce Irigaray and Henri Lefebvre’s The production of space, the analysis centers on the works of Lidiya Ginzburg (Zapiski blokadnogo čeloveka, 1984), Anna Świrszczyńska (Budowałam barykadę, 1974), Zlata Filipović (Le journal de Zlata, 1993), and Yevgenia Belorusets (Anfang des Krieges, 2022). The article argues that these texts challenge abstracting, phallogocentric systems of meaning on two distinct planes. First, they subvert abstract spatial structures forced on urban space by masculine power dynamics, accomplishing this through a perspective that emphasizes the city ‘from below’ and underscores the private, as opposed to the institutional, dimension of urban life. Second, they contest the erasure of the feminine in linguistic structures, shedding light on the oppression experienced by women during war and showcasing narrative and linguistic practices that reclaim agency. The article contends that these four texts not only represent deviations from conventional war narratives but also stage their own female authorship as an appeal against phallogocentric linguistic, spatial, and narrative structures. Consequently, they provide a means to articulate the precarity and marginalization of the feminine within both cities during war and economies of significance wherein the female is subjected to obliteration.

Inside-out

In this paper, I have speculated on the interior as a site and an idea of betweeness. Feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray (Irigaray 1999) has associated the concept of interior with dualist and gendered philosophies. Nevertheless, the interior as a site has offered many opportunities for artists and occupants to challenge how we inhabit and change architecture. In this paper, I will focus on a design project that involves experimental making and living as part of a subversive approach to architecture: suggesting that we might re-conceptualise ‘interior’ as the space of betweeness rather than the space of the contained. This paper, part of my ongoing doctoral research, has extended ideas about the interior that I explored in the 2003 IDEA journal and has reflected my personal experience of collaborative, experimental design practices. The purpose of my research is to explore the betweeness of spatial practice.

BACK TO THE MARKET: EXTENDING IRIGARAY’S READING OF MARX

The study suggests ways to extend Luce Irigaray’s reading of Marx in her article “Women on the Market” by applying it to a number of key issues in the feminist discourse especially the postmodern one. These issues are the relation between the metaphysical and the material, the abstract value and their implications on gender and its constructedness, ecofeminism, and the three social roles/functions of women specified by Irigaray (Mother, Virgin, and Prostitute) in terms of stereotypical representations of women in literature. The author starts with a thorough analysis of Irigaray’s views and shows how they intersect or depart from classical Marxism in terms of the four key issues. The study concludes with some suggestions that, besides putting Irigaray’s remarks to more useful application, would solve some conflicts in the Marxism / Feminism dialogue.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0787/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

“GOOD GIRLS AND BAD WOLVES?” - A READING OF BLURRED GENDER ROLES AND PARENTHOOD IN THE GRAPHIC NARRATIVES OF THE RED RIDING HOOD

Though not so iconised and popularized as the other fairy tales characters such as Cinderella, Snow White, or Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood has seen multifarious subversive revisions and adaptations in modern and postmodern art and literature. The role of motherhood is inextricable from the traditional narratives of the fairy tales; nonetheless, the recent retellings of the story in fiction, poetry, and notably in graphic narratives show a blurring of the gender archetypes. This paper analyzes the blurring of gender boundaries and parenthood in the graphic retelling of the popular fairy tale, Red Riding Hood, namely The Little Red Wolf by Amélie Fléchais, “Red” by Teloka And Pi, and Emily Carroll’s short comics “In Conclusion” and “His Face All Red”. These graphic narratives will be analyzed with the theoretical discourses of Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and Marina Warner.

Psychological Make-Up and Gender Construct in Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”

The paper aims at exploring Victorian poet Christina Rossetti’s poem (1830-1894) “Goblin Market” (1862) through psychoanalytical and feminist perspectives. The poem which is an ostensible tale meant to be narrated to children, is actually on a deeper level, a thematically voluminous piece of literature from which a plethora of meanings emerge. What this poem demonstrates, holds true in the contemporary times. The objectives of this paper are to analyze 1) the poem with reference to studying gender as a construct, established by the patriarchal discourses, and also 2) the complexes that an individual might undergo owing to repression. The paper makes use of Luce Irigaray (b. 1930) and Helene Cixous’ (b. 1937) notions of feminism and Freud (1856-1939) and Lacan’s (1901-1981) theories of psychoanalysis. After explaining the relevant theory, the researchers aim to apply it to “Goblin Market” in order to compare and contrast the poem from the two said perspectives. Feminism helps in deconstructing the patriarchal overtones and power relationships whereas psychoanalysis enables the readers to understand the complexes and experiences that individuals undergo owing to their psychological make-up.

The Concepts of Female Agency and Subjectivity in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House: A Feminist Study

The concept of feminism is a subject of debate within various branches of the humanities, most notably literature. Feminism embodies diverse social norms and cultural expressions which are reflected in literary works. The issue of feminism has been explored through various theoretical frameworks. Luce Irigaray, the notable feminist scholar, suggested different theories toward feminism. Her focus has been on women’s authentic nature, agency, and subjectivity in the face of oppression and a patriarchal society. She argued that individuals should consider themselves independently of their gender and abilities; as these reflect their inherent nature. The current article endeavors to analyze Nora, the leading protagonist in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, who is objectified by her husband, Torvald Helmer, and lacks agency in her personal life. Furthermore, Irigaray posited that women should uncover the genuine nature of their relationship to the world. The principal character undergoes various conflicts throughout the play, but ultimately resolves to discover her individualism and disregard the gender discrimination prevalent in the masculine society. The significance of this article lies in its interdisciplinary approach, blending literary analysis with feminist theory to offer a fresh and insightful perspective on a classic literary work. By integrating Irigaray's feminist theories, the article provides a deeper understanding of the challenges women face in patriarchal societies and their pursuit of authenticity and agency.

A French Feminist Reading of Theresa Rebeck’s Spike Heels

This study discusses the complex personality of Georgie in Theresa Rebeck’s High Heels (1992) by depending on the feminist points of view of one of the French feminist practitioners, Luce Irigaray. A short introduction is given to illustrate the woman’s situation in this study while referring to the play. This paper is limited to the analysis of Georgie’s personality though employing some of Irigaray’s feminist ideas. Her dissatisfaction with her life and the patriarchal system will be the focusing points of this paper. Georgie’s motives and personal movements will be explained as a method to reach her dream.

Kehadiran Linguistik, Falogosentris dan Pendidikan Kristen Dalam Percakapan Filosofi Luce Irigaray

Linguistic issues that are intertwined and/or related to gender are often researched from sociolinguistic circles, including friends from feminism. Researchers see that there is a special space for Luce Irigaray's philosophical lens which is more balacing, namely women are able to create their own language without the need for subordinate appraisal. Previously, throughout the history of male-dominated philosophers, there was a massive amount of an alienated philosophical perspective when encountering (meta)linguistics. The purpose of this study is to investigate philosopher Luke Irigaray's views on his disagreement with the distinction between men and women in the world of linguistics, including linguistics in daily worship in Christianity. This qualitative research design uses literature study as the basis to collect data on the emergence of linguistics through journals and books on linguistics, morphology and/or Christianity. Then, the data is analyzed through Luke Irigaray's views when talking about equal respect between the sexes and rejecting subordination/alienation. The results show that sexual difference goes beyond biological terms. Moreover, it lies in the historical civilization of language. Non-segregated language then accepts ambiguity, paradox, and ambivalence. For her, women have a natural sociability that leads to intersubjective communication in addition to being a symbolic weapon of the superior state.

Kehadiran Linguistik, Falogosentris dan Pendidikan Kristen Dalam Percakapan Filosofi Luce Irigaray

Linguistic issues that are intertwined and/or related to gender are often researched from sociolinguistic circles, including friends from feminism. Researchers see that there is a special space for Luce Irigaray's philosophical lens which is more balacing, namely women are able to create their own language without the need for subordinate appraisal. Previously, throughout the history of male-dominated philosophers, there was a massive amount of an alienated philosophical perspective when encountering (meta)linguistics. The purpose of this study is to investigate philosopher Luke Irigaray's views on his disagreement with the distinction between men and women in the world of linguistics, including linguistics in daily worship in Christianity. This qualitative research design uses literature study as the basis to collect data on the emergence of linguistics through journals and books on linguistics, morphology and/or Christianity. Then, the data is analyzed through Luke Irigaray's views when talking about equal respect between the sexes and rejecting subordination/alienation. The results show that sexual difference goes beyond biological terms. Moreover, it lies in the historical civilization of language. Non-segregated language then accepts ambiguity, paradox, and ambivalence. For her, women have a natural sociability that leads to intersubjective communication in addition to being a symbolic weapon of the superior state.

Limitations of Duality

The attempt to rearticulate traditional conceptions of nature can be both a useful strategy and a stumbling block when it comes to feminist examinations of the continuity between the objectification of women’s bodies and the domination of nature. This paper contributes to existing debates by providing a critique of what I term the “duality view” of nature: a view stipulating that nature is primarily characterised by a stable sexual duality, and advancing that the objectification of women’s bodies arises because the specificity of “femaleness” is ignored and duality is therefore neglected. I focus, specifically, on Alison Stone’s interpretation of Luce Irigaray, insofar as the account emerging from Stone’s interpretation clearly outlines the principles that most versions of the duality view should endorse. I problematise this account by showing that it becomes inconsistent with the critique of objectification which grounds it in the first place. I conclude by advancing that, overall, a view insisting on a natural sexual duality because of normative reasons conflicts with the feminist considerations at its basis. I also suggest that while the present analysis is primarily condemnatory, it can contribute to the development of feminist philosophies of nature by fleshing out avoidable pitfalls.

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, Code: From Information Theory to French Theory

Assembling a distinctive genealogy of cybernetic thought situated in relation to Progressive Era technocracy, industrial capitalism, (de)colonial relations, and eugenic machinery, Code uncovers the vital interdependence of informatics, the humanities, and the human sciences in the 20th century. Rather than figuring cybernetics as emerging from Second World War military technologies and post-war digital computing, Code argues that liberal technocrats’ inter-war visions of social welfare delivered via ‘neutral’ communication techniques shaped the informatic interventions of both the Second World War and the Cold War. Tracing how an organizing concept of code linked the work of diverse structurally-minded thinkers, such as Norbert Wiener, Warren Weaver, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roman Jakobson, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, and Luce Irigaray, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan reconstructs the cybernetic apparatus that spawned new fields, including structural anthropology, family therapy, and literary semiology – and grapples with the unfolding implications of such socio-technical dynamics for 21st-century critical theory, digital media, and data analytics.

Gender, Sex and Freedom: Testing the Theoretical Limits of the Twenty-First-Century ‘Gender Wars’ with Simone de Beauvoir, Shulamith Firestone and Luce Irigaray

Many Global North contexts are experiencing conflict in feminist discourses between supporters of trans and gender diverse self-identification and self-proclaimed ‘gender critical’ feminists who consider this to undermine feminist goals. We argue that the channelling of contemporary feminist discourse into defensive and oppositional channels has foreclosed the space for more nuanced and future-oriented, utopian thought around freedom from sex/gender, limiting the prospect of developing a coalition of actors focused not on difference, but rather on commonality. Putting classic feminist works by Simone de Beauvoir, Shulamith Firestone and Luce Irigaray into dialogue, we consider an alternative approach to freedom premised on an ontology of potentiality combined with acceptance of the materiality of the binary gender hierarchy, that nonetheless remains utopian and open-ended, demonstrating the capacity to transcend these impasses and potentially overcome these divides.

A Reading of Feminism and Camp in David Henry Hwang’s Play M. Butterfly

David Henry Hwang’s influential theatrical production of M. Butterfly (1988) has been widely discussed in terms of postcolonialism, Asian representations, and the intersection of gender and race. The feminist connotation embodied in the work, however, is largely either ignored or criticized. Employing poststructuralist feminist thoughts of Luce Irigaray, Teresa de Lauretis, and Judith Butler, as well as camp feminist research, the article attempts to illuminate the play’s undertones that defy patriarchal construction, gaze, and othering of women’s bodies in dominant culture and knowledge. It shows that the characterization of Comrade Chin, Renee, and other main female characters in M. Butterfly confront stereotypical representations of women with subversive ones. Moreover, the play camps or plays with fetishized womanhood in an excessive and exaggerated manner. In this way, it lays bare the presumed feminity as an artifice produced via the male gaze, freeing female beholders from identifying with the object and watched position and allowing them to return the watching gaze as a subject.

Luce Irigarays Body Theory and Film Rouge: Female Image of Courtesan Ruhua

The representation of charming female bodies is a distinct characteristic of feminine movies directed by Guan Jinpeng. Rouge, one of his representative works, illustrates the hope and despair of a courtesan named Ruhua. Although several studies revealed the political metaphor of her body image, few researchers put emphasis on the female sentiment behind it. Therefore, by means of textual analysis, this study explores the life experience of Ruhua mirrored by her body image based on three theoretical perspectives proposed by Luce Irigaray in The Sex Which is Not One, including market value, sexual pleasure and class oppression of the female body. The research finding is that in Rouge, lens languages such as compositions, lights and clothes are conceived elaborately to depict Ruhuas body feelings, which not only implies her disadvantaged position in terms of wealth, sex and power but also reflects her individual consciousness against her dominated body as she is craving for maintaining a relatively equal relationship with her lover. The body narrative in Rouge subverts traditional films made by other male directors that commodify the female body under the male gaze and sets an example for the future feminine movie of how the depiction of the female body destroys gender power.

From Choice to Possibility in Sheila Heti’s Motherhood

Abstract: Sheila Heti's 2018 novel, Motherhood, reorients the question of motherhood around possibility rather than choice. Misread by some critics as a memoir about the decision not to have a child, the novel instead emphasizes openness, chance, and change in order to articulate a form of freedom that is tied to indeterminacy rather than sovereignty. The novel points to the limitations of narratives of choice, suggesting instead that women’s experiences around reproduction await further description. Motherhood is thus engaged in the kind of project called for by the feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray: to define motherhood from the perspective of women. As both Irigaray and Heti make clear, this project must be shared by all women, whether or not they can or will have children. Heti’s novel demonstrates that, over fifty years after feminism’s second wave, motherhood continues to be circumscribed by patriarchy, and it points toward a feminist motherhood

Learning and teaching with the ‘body’: pedagogical hatches from Jennifer Bloomer

In 1999, I ran a studio at Iowa State University, College of Design, at the invitation of Jennifer Bloomer, who was working as a professor there. This invitation was motivated by her interest in my work and my PhD in Women Studies under Hélène Cixous’s supervision and indeed by Jennifer’s proximity with Cixous’s thinking and French Theory as a whole. The studio, inspired by Bloomer’s work and by the tradition of thinking the ‘body’ in French Theory, was focused on ‘Bodies and Cities’, highlighting the role of the body as a ‘para-theoretical device’ that would help students to look differently at urban contexts. This was done through a feminist pedagogical approach inspired and guided by Jennifer and her own references: bell hooks, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, Jacques Derrida, Paulo Freire, Roland Barthes, and Sigmund Freud. Taking an autobiographic route, this paper revisits Bloomer’s contribution to the feminist turn in architectural theory and education, which started in the 1990s, addressing her particular role as feminist thinker, educator, colleague, and friend in shaping this route. The paper reframes some of Bloomer’s ‘tropes’ like ‘mopping’, ‘hatching’, ‘quilt-making’, and ‘real life’, together with other feminist concepts which were influential to my own route in theory, practice, and education, to speak about how I understand Bloomer’s legacy and how this legacy can be further taken today to address current challenges.