Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent critique of Freud
This is Irigaray's best known book.Although at times her linguistic approach is difficult (namely when she discusses Lacan), I found these essays & interviews fascinating and meaningful.Essentially she presents a critique of Freud's conclusions on feminine sexuality; in his view, women exist only in relation to men; pretty much to provide pleasure and birth (hopefully male) babies.Irigaray describes how this notion came to be--not because women are intrinsically passive and masochistic, but because historical, linguistic, and social conditions construct this situation.She asks how women can be defined/seen/thought of just as women, not because of sexual capabilities.How can phallogocentric structures of language and commerce (basically our whole worldview) be revised or destroyed to allow women to exist without being objectified and commodified?It is unclear how optimisitc Irigaray is about this possibility, but her questioning has proved significant for many fields of study.In my opinion chapter 4, The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine, is the most succinct summary of her main ideas.

Worth the effort.
I disagree with the previous review, although I agree that this is an excellent book.Personally, I was glad to have studied Irigaray under the tutelage of an excellent professor, otherwise I would have, and I think many readers could, misread her drastically.Irigaray is simply not a clear and easy writer.

Simply put, Irigaray's writing falls under the category of "difference feminism", rather than egalitarian feminism, like most of the liberal feminists we, particularly in North America, are used to.Instead of trying to subsume male and female experience under the same account, Irigaray plays up the differences between the embodied experiences of men and women-- she is not an essentialist, it is more that she doesn't attempt to separate gender from sex in lived experience.

Her work is provocative-- some find it sexy, some off-putting.She attempts, for example, to redefine the ways males and females experience their sexuality, by challenging the central position of the phallus as an organ of domination.Her psychoanalytic language can be difficult to get through if you aren't, as I'm not, well-versed in that particular method.

This Sex Which Is Not One
A must read for those interested in Femenist Theory.Travelling across Freudian and Lacanian perspectives, this book seriously explains, with accesible language, the female sexuality.It simply expresses verydifficult theories, and guides the reader with accesible terminology fromthe outset.In my opinion, after reading this text, one can be said to befluent in femenist issues. I also think it is an extraordinary and seamlesstranslation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Oh My, Oh My
A lack of appreciation for these pensees will provoke snide (when not openly livid) dismissals of utter intellectual incompetence wedded to a crude, perfervid misogyny.So I'll be brief and, as is my wont, simplistic.If you want to make Freud look logical, compare him to Jung; if you want to make Jung look logical, compare him to Lacan; if you want to make Lacan look logical, compare him to Irigaray; if you want to make Irigaray look logical ... well ... there's always the Eleusinian Mysteries.

How often do we miss these?
In the analysis of Freud in the first instance, many of the great western philosophers in the second, and Plato noch einmal in the third, we have the opportunity to note the "place" of women in our traditions with a view to how innane it all was. How often in reading the tradition do we miss the speculum of the man for what it was? How much effort would it be to always be aware of this?

Sight Presence
Those unfamiliar with Plato, Descartes, Freud and Lacan will find great challenges in understanding this rather poetic book. Irigary examines these figures in light of the "symbolic order" to detailphallocentricism in the development of Western thought in general as wellas psychoanalysis, revealing what is, according to the author, the natureof feminine sexuality and gender identity. Reading this text, written by aformer student of Lacan's expelled over ideological differences, wastransforming and has left a permanent perspective from which to percieveand critique philosophical arguments as well as science, medicine, andpsychotherapy.

Nice feminist critique of Freud, Plato, and others
The first section is especially wonderful: acomplete analysis of Freud's construction of women's sexuality and development.She has a great style with many a qwirk to keep you entertained.The second section includesfree-form essays on Aristotle, Kant, Plato, Descartes and otherrepresentatives of the Western male philosophical canon.The last sectionis a complete analysis of Plato's Hystera.This is a good text for thoseof us who need to read the foundations of feminist thought . . . thoughsome American feminists (such as myself) may find themselves annoyed withher "essentialism".Enjoy! ... Read more

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Luce Irigaray is one of the leading French feminist philosophers and psychoanalysts. Her work is concerned primarily with the construction of femininity and sexual differences in Western philosophy and with the exploration of new psychoanalytical and feminist perspectives on sexual differences. She has written a number of influential books, notably Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not One, both translated into English.

The Irigaray Reader is a collection of Luce Irigaray's most important papers to date. They range across feminism, philosophy, psychoanalysis and linguistics, and are grouped here into three broad sections: The Critique of Patriarchy, Psychoanalysis and Language, and Ethics and Subjectivity. Each section begins with an introduction by Margaret Whitford, and the book also includes bibliographies of works by and about Irigaray.

A number of pieces in The Irigaray Reader appear for the first time in English. This is the most comprehensive collection available of Irigaray's work, work that has profoundly influenced contemporary debates across a range of disciplines. ... Read more

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This volume continues and completes Irigaray's writing on "sexual difference" by addressing the ethical implications of her work. Irigaray speaks out against the egalitarian project of feminism important to the Anglo-American school of women thinkers; instead she pursues questions of sexual difference, arguing that all thought and language is gendered and that there can therefore be no neutral thought - philosophy, science or psychoanalysis. Counterposing classical philosophical texts - including those of Plato, Spinoza and Levinas - with a series of meditations on the female experience, she shows that traditional philosophical concepts are problematic. She advocates new philosophies grounded in women's experience, through which women can develop a distinctly female space and a "love of self". Only then can love become ethical and the basis of a transformed ethics of sexual difference. This volume provides a major contribution to an expanding feminist and philosophical discourse and should be of value to feminists, literary critics and philosophers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A classic of continental thinking.
Irigaray's `rewriting' of philosophy and philosophers is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy these days.It is also a refreshing breath of thought on `Feminism'.The concept of `Place'is presented asWoman, a return to the primordial feminine via `deconstruction' (in thebest possible way) of western patriarchial hegemony.Besides the radicalcontent, it is is beautifully written - clear and profound. Read thisbook! ... Read more

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Luce Irigaray: Teaching explores ways to confront new issues in education. Three essays by - Irigaray herself present the outcomes of her own experiments in this area and develop proposals for teaching people how to coexist in difference, reach self-affection, and rethink the relations between teachers and students. In the last few years, Irigaray has brought together young academics from various countries, universities and disciplines, all of whom were carrying out research into her work. These research students have received personal instruction from Irigaray and at the same time have learnt from one another by sharing with the group their own knowledge and experience. Most of the essays in this book are the result of this dynamic way of learning that fosters rigour in thinking as well as mutual respect for differences. The central themes of the volume focus on five cultural fields: methods of recovery from traumatic personal or cultural experience; the resources that arts offer for dwelling in oneself and with the other (s) ; the maternal order and feminine genealogy; creative interpretation and embodiment of the divine; and new perspectives in philosophy. This innovative collaborative project between Irigaray and researchers involved in the study of her work gives a unique insight into the topics that have occupied this influential international theorist over the last thirty years. ... Read more

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In Democracy Begins Between Two, Luce Irigaray calls for a form of specific civil rights guaranteeing women a separate civil identity of their own equivalent to-though not simply the same as-that enjoyed by men. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Visionary
I disagree strongly with the reviewer who posted before me. The reviewer criticizes Irigaray for being an idealist-- but idealism is important, because it is what allows us to imagine a future where our lives are happier and the world is more just. Plus, this book is full of practical ways in which to think about implementing that vision-- like a discussion of what kind of laws the European Union would need if it really wanted to treat women as though they were equal to men.

This book argues that if we want gender equality, then we need to do some serious thinking about some fundamental philosophical concepts we have, rights foremost among them. And it shows that we can't have gender equality if the yardstick for that equality is always the male one.

Radical, not logical
Luce Irigaray brings up very strong and valid points for the equality of opportunity of women in the workforce, but many of her statements seem to be of an idealistic nature. It places the responsibility on the employer to accommodate the personal desires of the employee. It also seems to remove the personal responsibility from the female employee in regards to working toward more satisfying employment. The generalized statements the author makes about women place limitations on the kind of employment she thinks would be appropriate, that the women would enjoy, and that the women would be good at. It seems as though Irigaray is saying that keeping women off of the corporate ladder is okay and completely acceptable because a women would not be good at, nor would she enjoy that kind of work. ... Read more

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In Thinking The Difference, Luce Irigaray examines the ways in which women are failed by the cultural, political and legal institutions set up to protect and preserve, regardless of sex. Here Irigaray addresses the civil domain--where women's bodies, nature, space, symbolism and representation are appropriated by ``the people of men''-- --and the need for concrete changes so that women may share in culture as women themselves, thereby gaining an as-yet-unfound full citizenship in the world. ... Read more

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The Way of Love asks the question: How can we love each other? Here Luce Irigaray, one of the world's foremost philosophers, presents an extraordinary exploration of desire and the human heart.

If Western philosophy has claimed to be a love of wisdom, it has forgotten to become a wisdom of love. We still lack words, gestures, ways of doing or thinking to approach one another as humans, to enter into dialogue, to build a world where we can live together.

Globalisation represents an opportunity but also a danger for humanity. Sameness has been the key to the construction of Western cultures and societies. Difference - beginning with sexual difference - can open up for us an era of inter-communication, from our most everyday exchanges to the universal interweaving of a democratic global community. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A wisdom of love
What is love and why is it so important to understand and explore it?

Since Plato's Symposium (and maybe even longer) the meaning of love has been a significant topic of philosophers. Irigaray's exploration and discussion is refreshingly different. She, in a way, takes on the whole prior philosophic tradition.

This is tough but exciting. It requires a bit of patience to stick with Irigaray's argument for this whole book--both because of the denseness of her philosophic language and a difficult transation that she herself (almost apologetically) took a hand in, changing some of the terms used by her translators. But in sticking with her we learn that her "way of love" is a) really quite down to earth; and b) very poetic and all-encompassing. Both of these at the same time!

One of her most enticing notions is "letting be transcendence."

"To experience this co-belonging implies leaving representative thought and letting oneself go in the co-belonging to Being which already inhabits us, constitutes us, surrounds us. It presupposes, in fact, dwelling 'there where we truly already are' . . . In order to have access to it man has to leave his own world, or rather to partly open its limits. It is not in his house, including that of language, that he will find out how to enter a new historical era, a new speech. The feature referring to the specificity of man has to change place--passing from the relation to things to the relation to the other."

I think of "letting be transcendence" as the best possible communication between persons who love one another. It is a way of relating in which one does not define the other but leaves an open space and listens and watches to see how the other defines him or herself. By not defining or pre-categorizing the other, two together achieve something higher--the "letting be transcendence" which opens up a whole world, and a higher order of thinking and existing in the world.

Besides "letting be transcendence" there are numerous concepts and ideas she reveals along the "way of love" that captivate our imagination and make us want to be participants. Love for Irigaray is not some abstract notion or intellectual category--it is real, existing in the here and now.

It is exciting when you, as her reader, are going along with Irigaray on these flights. She makes love--actual physical, emotional love and being together--to be something transforming and visionary.

It is as though Irigary takes the actual physical proximity that we know of as fulfilling love and expands it outward into a view of the cosmos--and in a way that is the reverse of Plato and other philosophers. In the old fashioned way of looking at things philosophically, love seems more an abstract external concept or force that a man (if worthy) might access or partake of. But for Irigaray it is the concrete, immediate presence of love that generates this spiritual force outward.

Very cleverly she begins her treatise by discussing the word "philosophy" itself, asking the question why we have interpreted philosophy to mean "love of wisdom" instead of the "wisdom of love."

It requires concentration and a surrender to her text (almost like the surrender to love itself) to keep up with Irigaray on her remarkable journey, but the experience is well worth it.




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In this important new book, a follow up to The Way of Love, Luce Irigaray, one of France's most influential contemporary theorists, turns once again to the concept of otherness.

We are accustomed to considering the other as an individual without paying sufficient attention to the particular world or specific culture to which the other belongs. A phenomenological approach to this question offers some help, notably through Heidegger's analyses of "Dasein", "being-in-the-world" and "being with'. Nevertheless, according to Heidegger, it remains almost impossible to identify an other outside of our own world. "Otherness" is subjected to the same values by which we are ourselves defined and thus we remain in "sameness'. In this age of multiculturalism and in the light of Nietzsche's criticism of our values and Heidegger's deconstruction of our interpretation of truth, Irigaray questions the validity of the "sameness" that sits at the root of Western culture. ... Read more

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In this major new work, French philosopher Luce Irigaray continues to explore the issue central to her thought: the feminist redefinition of Being and Identity.For Irigaray, the notion of the individual is twinned with a reconceived notion of difference, or alterity. What does it mean to be someone? How can identity be created, or discovered, in relation to others? In To Be Two Irigaray gives new clarity to her project, grounding it in relation to such major figures as Sartre, Levinas, and Merleau-Ponty. Yet at the same time, she enriches her discussion with an attempt to bring the elements--earth, fire, water--into philosophical discourse. Even the polarities of heaven and earth come to play in this ambitious and provocative text.

At once political, philosophical, and poetic, To Be Two will become one of Irigarary's central works. ... Read more

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Irigaray offers the clearest available introduction to her own work.Focusing on power, women, gender and patriarchal mythologies, she lays out what for her has become the central problem for women in the modern world. ... Read more

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For Luce Irigaray, one of the most original French feminist theorists, deconstructing the patriarchal tradition is not enough. She admits that it is not an easy task, but she believes that it is necessary to also define new values directly or indirectly suitable to feminine subjectivity and to feminine identity. She begins this project by analyzing and interpreting the absence of the feminine subject in the definition of dominant cultural values. She then wonders how these new values can be constructed without simply reversing the roles. Far from implying a hierarchy, difference affirms the coexistence and fruitful encounter of two different identities. These two heterogeneous identities, masculine and feminine, are not socially but ontologically constructed and describing the feminine requires establishing methods other than those already used by the masculine subject.

Why Different? is a collection of interviews, conducted in both France and Italy, that deal explicitly with the relationship between daughter and mother, the sexuation of language, the symbolic order, and the importance of both history and philosophy for the liberation of the feminine subject. In Why Different? Irigaray elaborates on issues brought up in her other books, Speaking is Never Neutral, I Love to You, Thinking the Difference, and To Be Two and brings them to fruition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A thought-provoking collection of interviews
"Why Different?: A Culture of Two Subjects," is a collection of interviews with Luce Irigaray. The book is edited by Irigaray and Sylvere Lotringer. Camille Collins is credited as primary translator, although there are a few sections that have others credited as translators.

The introduction by Irigaray (dated 1998) discusses the relationship of interviews to written texts. The interviews in this book generally discuss her own corpus of written texts.

Overall, I found this book very thought-provoking. Irigaray discusses feminism, mother-daughter relationships, language, and spirituality. Particularly fascinating are her observations on the "sexed" nature of language; this material reminds me somewhat of the debates over Black English. Also intriguing are her discourses on the significance of her other books' titles. She draws on an eclectic body of knowledge, citing Marguerite Yourcenar, Heidegger, Greek mythology, Marx, the life of Jesus, etc.

At times she strikes me as overly fixated on "sexual difference" as a "universal reality." Nevertheless, I still find the book intriguing and worthwhile. ... Read more

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Margaret Whitford's study provides the ideal introduction to Irigaray's thought, offering a sustained interpretation of her whole corpus, including previously untranslated French texts. Whitford suggests that Irigaray's work should be seen as "philosophy in the feminine," actively opposing the complicity of philosophy with other social practices which exclude or marginalize women. ... Read more

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Another superb performance for Luce
Luce is lucid, floating in transcendence and below to reason to teach us all how to catch the ride of life lived out in love. ... Read more

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A transdisciplinary reader on Luce Irigaray's reading and rewriting of ancient Greek texts. ... Read more

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Alison Stone offers a feminist defence of the idea that sexual difference is natural, providing a novel interpretation of the later philosophy of Luce Irigaray. She defends Irigaray's unique form of essentialism and her rethinking of the relationship between nature and culture, showing how Irigaray's ideas can be reconciled with Judith Butler's performative conception of gender, through rethinking sexual difference in relation to German Romantic philosophies of nature. This is a sustained attempt to connect feminist conceptions of embodiment to German idealist and Romantic accounts of nature. Not merely an interpretation of Irigaray, this book also presents an original feminist perspective on nature and the body. It will encourage debate on the relations between sexual difference, essentialism, and embodiment. ... Read more

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In this book, one of the foremost contemporary scholars in the fields of feminist thought and linguistics, explores the possibility of a new liberating language and hence a new relationship between the sexes. In I Love to You, Luce Irigaray moves from the critique of patriarchy to an exploration of the ground for a possible inter-subjectivity between the two sexes. Continuing her rejection of demands for equality, Irigaray poses the question: how can we move to a new era of sexual difference in which women and men establish lasting relations with one another without reducing the other to the status of object?
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In the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray is one of France's most versatile feminist critics.a collection of lectures delivered throughout Canada and Europe, introduces her writing to a wider American audience.Irigaray's most famous work,prompted her expulsion from the Lacanin Ecole Freudienne because of its searing depiction of Platonic and Freudian representations of women. Nowanalyzes sexual difference according to what she terms the double dimension of gender and ideology.Irigaray covers major issues in religion, the law, psychoanalysis, and literature, such as: the continued neglect by psychoanalysts of the sexual and gender dimensions of therapy, the urgency of female divinity for contemporary feminist movements, and a reconsideration of women's relation to the market economy.also includes Irigaray's dazzling reading of thenow acknowleged as a feminist classic. ... Read more

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A passionate celebrator of "sexual difference," Luce Irigaray was never simply after the social equality that her generation so publicly demanded. She was seeking more fundamentally a society that celebrated the differences between the genders and their coming together in a union without hierarchy. As she formulates it in this compellingly readable introduction to her own thought, Irigaray is writing about how "I" and "You" become "We." Exploring along the way women’s experiences of motherhood, abortion, the AIDS crisis and the beauty industry, this book presents one of the most important thinkers of our day in her own words.