File spoon-archives/french-feminism.archive/french-feminism_1997/97-03-25.044, message 84


Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 23:28:30 -0500 (EST)
From: "Mark Logan and Kathleen O'Grady" <kerouack-AT-nic.wat.hookup.net>
Subject: Re: Do FFs comment on each other's work?




I have never seen Kristeva (to my memory) make *overt* references to
Cixous or Irigaray, though she often refers to them indirectly.  There are
references in many places, but the most obvious is in her now renown 
"Women's Time", to that type of feminist writing practice which celebrates
the feminine.  Her remarks are always derogatory, and quite often funny
(or meant that way!).  Cixous represents the "second wave" of feminist
writing that JK critiques in "Women's Time".  In fact, you could probably
construct a reading that posits WT as a direct reaction against the rise
of Cixous feminism in France.    

During a conference paper in Leeds, England, Toril Moi also referred to a
passage in JK's early work (as early as Revolution in Poetic Language)
where she ridicules those writers (here, referring to Irigaray) who obsess
with caves and such.  I do not have the exact reference, though -- sorry!  

But most of her references, in my reading, are to Cixous and her version
of feminism.  This is the type of feminist practice that JK wants to
distance herself from.  And, of course, is also associated with her
troubled past with Editions des femmes (MLF) and other notable feminists
in France.  See also, her very negative remarks about this group in _The
Samourai_ (where she refers to them as ugly and repressed).  I don't think
she has Cixous in mind here, though, but the press that (editions des
femmes) which gave her a hard time over her publication of Des Chinoises.  

(For those of you who don't know, Les Samourais is a thinly veiled
autobiography -- a roman a clef -- surrounding the May 1968 events and
afterward, and features many notable French thinkers).  

Hope that helps a bit!




***********************************************************************
Kathleen O'Grady
Trinity College, University of Cambridge

ko10001-AT-hermes.cam.ac.uk or kerouack-AT-hookup.net

Mailing address: PO Box 31004, 25 Frederick Street, Kitchener, Ontario
Canada N2H S67




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