Date: Sun, 09 Apr 1995 12:44:08 -0500 (CDT)
From: DDM1792-AT-UTARLG.UTA.EDU
Subject: Re: Politics and french-feminism



Just thought I'd throw my two-cents i n about Braidotti's foundationalism.
And...say that I think, Lynda, that this is a great sub-ject for this list.
>:>  

I think the problems I have wit Braidotti come out best in her article
in _Gilles Deleuze and the theater of Philosophy_, called "Toward a 
new Nomadism."  I can usually trek right along with her...only pausing
at times to wonder if she REALLY meant to say "foundational" or "to found"
or whatever.  She does talk the talk really well for the most part--but
occasionally, with a weird turn of a phrase, she exposes her modernist
hope... I found a good frinstance to share.  It's on page 169.  Here,
Braidotti, echoing NANCY HARTSOCK, of all people, writes the following:
"one cannot deconstruct a subjectivity one has never been fully granted
control over; one cannot diffuse a sexuality that has not historically
been defined as dark and mysterious.  In order to announce the death
of the subject, one must first have gained the right to speak as one."

May I just say...WHAT?!  Here it becomes very clear that she has not
(her feminist vision[s] has/have not) experienced a gestalt switch.
Alice Jardine said, in Gynesis, that there is, "after all, a difference
between really attempting to think differently and thinking the same
through the manipulation of difference."  I think Braidotti is still
stuck in the latter.  I see a big difference between Braidotti and 
Cixous, Irigaray, Butler, Haraway, and Avital Ronell, for instance, all
of whom appear to be redescribing in a way that re/cognizes a  
"fundamental" (can SHE SAY THAT?) shift in perspective.  These theorists,
unlike Braidotti, seem to understand a politics that would Be Other/Wise.

Diane Mowery
ddm1792-AT-utarlg.uta.edu

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