Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 17:52:02 +0000 (GMT)
From: Alice Webster-Petley <aw19-AT-st-andrews.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Irigaray and Orlando (fwd) and contexts for French feminism



 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 12:30:18 +0000
From: Caroline <C.Bainbridge1-AT-sheffield.ac.uk>
To: Alice Webster-Petley <aw19-AT-st-andrews.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Irigaray and Orlando

Dear Stokely and Laurel

Your course sounds fascinating!  I wonder whether I can actually be 
of any use to you though as I am actually looking at Sally Potter's 
film version of Woolf's _Orlando_.  (I should have made that clear - 
sorry.)  I have written a paper that I am about to redraft for a 
conference in Aberdeen in August on the notion of gendered history 
and how it links up with Irigaray's writings on the angel and the 
divine.  I am also very interested in how Irigaray's work seems to 
undo and rework the psychoanalytic category of the death drive, 
particularly in relation to masquerade and mimesis.  I have various 
(unpublished) essays on how these ideas relate to Potter's text which
 constitute my Ph.D work to date.  I would be happy to discuss these 
pieces with you if you are interested.


You had made it clear that it was the film version, but we were 
interested anyway.  We would like to  hear more about masquerade and 
mimesis, also death drives.

(by the way, just to clarify, we are doing research not exactly a course. 
We're both PhD. students (this is just to boost our egos!)).  Stokely is 
doing hers on Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism (which is why Irigaray is so 
interesting) and I (Laurel--I know this is a bit confusing because we're 
using Stoke's email address) am doing post-colonial cultural identity in 
the DOM-TOM and the Commonwealth.  Any comments would be valued.

Soon Stokely and I won't be internet siamese twins; I've subscribed and 
that should go through in a few days.  If anyone is interested my email 
address is lat-AT-st-andrews.ac.uk.

MDorencamp-AT-aol.com questioned whether French feminists need to be seen 
only in the light of one context or if they can be usefully put into 
another perspective.  We would like to be able to take them out of both 
contexts of French and feminist. I am looking at them in the light of 
post-colonial studies (Cixous as Algerian, for example).  If a theory is  
only applicable to one area, it's use is questionable.  Any comments?