From: meaghan-AT-utdallas.edu
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 19:29:04 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: grotesque, abject, uncanny



First, I think that an insistance on a topic (especially in a 
philosophical milieu) to the exclusion of another (e.g. Irigaray's notion 
of 'fluid' versus 'scorpio') is limiting.  That discussion of 'signs' led 
one among to make a connection between an archetype in a sign and her own 
work in religious iconography and the understandings of Mary Magdalen -- 
which ties VERY nicely into feminism and FF, certainly has connections to 
Irigaray's tendency to place the feminine on the side of the divine.   
Which, neatly enough, would place the feminine on the side of the 
disruptive and the uncanny (in Heidegger's sense of being 'outside' or 
inside-outside, rather).  

Philosophers think out all kinds of things, and some of them, like 
astrology on this list can prove fruitful toys. Let's not forget htat 
some play is good for the rigorus mind.  Keeps it flexible.

I've read hediegger's gig on 
Antigone where he 
develops his notion of the uncanny (and see traces of it in Irigaray), 
Hegel's bit on Antigone in the Ethics chpater of _Spirit_, have read 
Irig's later works, am starting on th eearly ones, and am current'y 
reading an antohlogy of essays _Nietzsche and the Feminine_ which often 
takes FF approaches to or traces FF themes from Nietsche.  In it, I just 
finished an essay on Nietzsche, mothers and abjection (bits of Kristeva 
there) -- so that topic suggestion seem well-starred for me.  But before 
getting into it, I need a working definition of the grotesque as that's 
the term I've encountered least.

Meaghan