Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:50:36 -0700 From: Sally Cloake <xtnybw-AT-echidna.stu.cowan.edu.au> Subject: Re: middle-passive Meaghan wrote: > > as i think i understand this middle-passive, sally, irigaray says that > it's not exactly like the 'middle voice.' the closest thig we have to > the middle voice (a greek verb tense, or mood, i think) is something > like 'it's raining' wherein the subject is the verb. heidegger tries to > approximate the middle voice when he says things like 'the worlding of > the world' in Poetry,Language,Thought (although this is a stragey he > uses elsewhere as well). There's no object of the action, but something > is _taking place_. irigaray is very interested in 'woman' taking place > in An Ethics, but she's also interested in teh couple and the man taking > taking place and in how two subjects can take place together without the > sorts of icky power struggles this usually entails (as it does in the > existentialism of both Sartre and de Beauvoir, two of her predecessors). > i think she trying to figure an ethos of living and becoming that > functions other than in the existential agon. the middle passive seems > to me to be a both a mode of thinking/writing and of being/becoming. the > process of becoming in this way would, i think, entail becoming which > does not appropriate either the being or the becoming of one's other, > but which happens from the self, for the self and the other, and in the > realtionship. it's akin to a being being in and for itself, but a > little skewed. -- ok, i'm sound too much like heidegger, but he's a big > influence on irigaray, so maybe that's not so bad? > > i understand it this way becuase of her concept of the interval, a > mediating and elastic between of two beings through and in which thier > relations take place. of course, it is vital in her thinking that this > relation be one of generous and not of selfish desire. so i think the > middle passive is a sort of condition to be acheived, or a way of being > to be inhabited by selves/subjects. > > let me know if this helps, or if i need to clarify what i've just said. > i wrote this without rereading the passages in An Ethics where this > comes up, so take this as off the cuff. it's a great question, and one > that i know i'm deep in thought about for my dissertaion, so the more > discussion about this, the happier i'll be. > > be well, > meaghan > > Sally Cloake wrote: > > > > Hi! > > I'd be interested to hear anyone's conception of > > Irigaray's 'middle-passive' in _An Ethics of Sexual Difference_? > > Sally > > xtnybw-AT-echidna.stu.cowan.edu.au > > > > --- from list french-feminism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > > --- from list french-feminism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---Thanks Meaghan. I have read barely any Irigaray, and I find her quite hard (harder than other feminists I have been looking at such as Butler, Bordo, Braidotti, Grosz, Haraway, etc). I think it must be partly because she doesn't write that linear, academic style that I'm used to. I also think it is because Australian education seems to offer no philosophy (unless you do a philosophy degree) in undergraduate degrees. I have never read Heidegger, or Sartre, or anyone. The closest I got was a bit of Derrida in my honours year. I guess I'll just have to discover it all now. I will have to check this, but what you said about the middle-passive seems to parallel what Haraway calls actor/actant network theory in _The Promises of Monsters_ Have you read it? If there is a correlation, it could prove a useful way in to a particular problem I'm currently addressing. What is your dissertation about? I have just started my Phd this year - Feminism and Cyberspace (Groovy title not yet decided). I am focusing on issues of subjectivity and dis/embodiment. I would love to 'talk' to you and the others on the list, but you might have to wait until I have read and digested more Irigaray, and can then discuss it properly! Thanks again for your reply, Sally. --- from list french-feminism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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