Philosophy and the Maternal Body: Reading Silence

by Boulous Walker,Michelle

• ISBN13: 9780415168588
• ISBN10: 0415168589
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1998-03-20
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Philosophy and the Maternal Bodyis a fascinating exploration of an overlooked aspect of feminist thought: what is the role of maternity in philosophy and in what ways has it been used by male theorists to effectively "silence" the voices of women in philosophy? Drawing on rich examples such as Plato's allegory of the cave, Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein's writing on the mother and the mother-daughter relationship, and the psychoanalytic and feminist insights of Irigaray and Kristeva, Michelle Boulous Walker clearly shows how terms such as denial, repression and foreclosure offer crucial insight into the philosophical construction of the maternal body.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	x
Introduction	1	(6)
PART I Reading silence	7	(94)
1 Speaking silence: woman's voice in philosophy	9	(18)
Reading silence	10	(1)
Luce Irigaray: speaking otherwise -- woman as the place of philosophy	11	(4)
Michele Le Doeuff: woman as enclosed spacelinteriority	15	(12)
2 Philosophy: reading denial	27	(23)
Returning to the repressed: Plato's bodily fluids	28	(3)
Symptomatic reading	33	(1)
Reading with the eye	34	(2)
Reading with innocence and guilt	36	(2)
Louis Althusser: a world without women	38	(4)
Returning to the scene of the crime	42	(5)
Althusser's problematic: silencing and exclusion	47	(3)
3 Reading psychoanalysis: psychotic texts/maternal pre-texts	50	(18)
Reading Freud	51	(1)
Psychosis: foreclosing the mother	51	(4)
"Fort-da" as the compulsion to repeat	55	(3)
Schreber: the self as psychotic text	58	(6)
The abject: writing (and) the maternal body	64	(4)
4 Philosophy and silence: The Differend	68	(17)
Jean-Francois Lyotard: The Differend	68	(4)
Figuring woman: the idiom of sexual difference?	72	(5)
Luce Irigaray: genre and sexual difference	77	(4)
Women and silence: differend	81	(4)
5 Unquiet silence: Kristeva reading Marx with Freud	85	(16)
Reading Marx: production and (masculine) self-production	85	(2)
Marx: the language of birth	87	(2)
Baudrillard reading Marx	89	(2)
Kristeva reading Marx	91	(1)
The dream-work	92	(3)
Silent production?	95	(2)
Symbolic exchange	97	(4)
PART II Speaking silence	101	(75)
6 Kristeva: naming the problem	103	(31)
The poetic subject and negativity	104	(3)
The body in crisis	107	(6)
Poetic language as revolution: reading the avant-garde	113	(3)
Poetic language and the maternal body	116	(5)
Woman as negativity	121	(7)
Beyond the proper name	128	(6)
7 Collecting mothers: women at the Symposium	134	(25)
Exploring the maternal metaphor	135	(3)
Mother's white ink: Helene Cixous	138	(3)
Writing the mother: Melanie Klein	141	(3)
Mothers and the art of birth: Julia Kristeva	144	(5)
Toward a feminist poetics: writing (and) the mother's body	149	(6)
From body to voice: labial logic	155	(4)
8 Mothers and daughters: speaking	159	(17)
Mothers and daughters writing	159	(4)
Reproduction and repetition	163	(7)
Mother-daughter poetics: Luce Irigaray	170	(6)
Conclusion: speaking with(in) the symbolic	176	(6)
Notes	182	(35)
Bibliography	217	(14)
Index	231