Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 10:35:17 -0600 (MDT)
From: Judith Carla Grossman <jcgrossm-AT-acs.ucalgary.ca>
Subject:  Haraway, Connell, discourse and gender 


Donna Haraway and Robert Connell are coming to Calgary this week as part
of a conference on the "impact of gender on the disciplines" sponsored by
the Committee for the INstitute for Gender Research here at the University
of Calgary.  

Any suggestions as to essential readings prior to their respective talks?
(Haraway: "The Virtual Speculum in the New World Order"  and Connell
"Politics of Masculinity and Theories of Gender").

Speaking of Butler or rather of the ongoing debates about how awareness of
the material body is shaped discursively, Chris Shilling in his book "The
Body and Social Theory" clearly separates Connell from what he calls
"radical social constructionists" (whom he seems to accuse of "discursive
essentialism" p.81). He places Connell, as I understand it, in the camp
that argues that the eventual embodiment through social practices  of
"dominant conceptualizations of masculinity and femininity" (p.111) in turn
influences the "construction of discourse" (p.113). Shilling argues
therefore that for Connell, discourse does not stem "purely from
disembodied categories we utilize as a result of some externally located
dominant ideology.  INstead they are based ... upon our multiple
experiences of embodiment" ( Shilling,p.113). 
 
I have been trying to evaluate how important and useful a distionction
this is between "radical social constuctionists" and Connell for example.
Where would I find Connell's most concise writing on this matter?      

judith grossman