Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 14:40:09 +0100
From: michael david pennamacoor <pennamacoor-AT-enterprise.net>
Subject: Re: talking about Irigaray


hi Catherine, recently you wrote:

>I would just jump in here briefly to emphasize, as you all know, how
>important Heidegger is for her work. I think it is more useful to
>characterize it as a continuing-thinking, rather than oppose it to (or
>equate it with) Heidegger's project.

A sort of furthering the thinking from another source? Presencing the
forgotten, the covered-over of metaphysics (the question of being) has been
the difficult task of Heidegger's thinking; could we say that Irigaray
continues Heidegger by reperforming his thinking onto his oeuvre?
displaying what his thinking has covered over -- the sexual difference?
air? life?

>The big difference, of course, is that
>she takes sexual difference as the (to come) locus of difference, and the
>to come can be read both logically and historically, a blurring her writing
>enjoys.

Is the 'to come' something like Heidegger's ereignis (event of
appropriation, the admission into the mission sent from the inception, and
its attendant waiting upon, gelassenheit)? Heidegger's thinking has
somewhat dis-solved the chrono-logical notions of time, historicity and
temporality -- this seems true for Irigaray too, can you exemplify?

>The notion, for example, of the forgotten feminine is central;
>however, after Heidegger we are certainly not speaking of a feminine
>essence to be refound and reinstated. This forgotten, and this forgetting,
>is rather constitutive of the world (of metaphysics), and so, as you
>intimate, to weave it back into that world would entail its (the
>forgotten's) invention, and the world's radical change.

A radical intervention of the obliviated sexual difference: a more original
cleavage than that of the ontological difference? or perhaps an other
difference, a different difference...

>Another suggestion: if you haven't read her essays in An Ethics of Sexual
>Difference, and are just moving into Irigaray as a philosopher, I think
>you'd find them most helpful.

Thankyou for the suggestion (I'll try to get the book ...)

May I ask, given my newness on this list and my not being familiar with
what issues you have covered in the past, whether it would be appropriate
(not covering old ground long-since travelled) for me to summarise
Derrida's glance at Heidegger's apparent omission of sexuality and sexual
difference in his fundamental ontology project, why dasein is sexually
neutral and the status of this observation? Might this be relevant to
dfiscussing the relationship between Irigaray and Heidegger at one critical
point of apparent departure, of parturing?

>Nice to see words on the list again...
>Catherine Peebles

best wishes

Michael(dP)




>
>At 08:53 AM 7/30/2000 +0100, you wrote:
>>hi Simone
>>
>>you wrote recently:
>>
>>>Michael and all,
>>>
>>>Hi.  irigaray has several books that deal with elements in the works of
>>>other philosophers: Elemental Passions (earth) and The Marine Lover of
>>>Friedrich Nietzsche (water), and some argue that Speculum can also be
>>>placed in this category (fire).
>>>
>>>her emphasis on the elements: air, earth, fire, water, is part and
>>>parcel of her development of a sensible transcendental, and the elements
>>>operate on both literal and metaphorical levels (thus sensible
>>>transcendental), as well as part of her own return to pre-Socratic
>>>thinking.  usually, the elements are those that are ignored or devalued
>>>in other works, and she excavates them deconstructively as 'symbols' for
>>>the covering over of the feminine in metaphysics (the connection between
>>>the abyss and the womb in her Heidegger book and others, for instance).
>>>it's complicated.
>>
>>Shortly, I should have Oblivion... and Marine... and I Love.... (when
>>amazon gets to ship them) and I'll treat myself to a full immersion. I the
>>very mean time, I wonder, given my interest in Heideggerand his attempts to
>>deconstruct the entire metaphysical tradition, in your opinion, whether
>>Irigaray is exposing, dis-covering, the feminine in metaphysics, in order
>>to re-instate, recover it within or around metaphysics or whether she is
>>attempting an overcoming (verwindung) of metaphysics and moving through to
>>another 'space' of thinking, say, by threading through the forgotten
>>feminine into the tapestry of erstwhile metaphysics, [thus transporting the
>>whole into...]?
>>
>>The little I've read of Irigaray reminds me greatly of Heidegger at his
>>poetic scintillating best: it is language (of) thinking...
>>
>>best wishes
>>
>>michael
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>my advice is never to get your irigaray second hand, no matter how
>>>honest or good the source.  each of her books is part of a fairly well
>>>unified (though i admit unified by the logic of metaphor and symbol more
>>>than by linearity) project, and her parole is so uniquely her own that
>>>one, i think, really should get immersed for themselves.  she a very
>>>poetic writer, and no two people read quite the same Irigaray for that
>>>reason.
>>>
>>>best to all,
>>>Simone
>>>
>>>michael david pennamacoor wrote:
>>>>
>>>> thankyou Noelle
>>>>
>>>> two or three initial questions:
>>>>
>>>> 1) are the "elements" earth & air meant literally or (in what way)
>>>> metaphorically?
>>>>
>>>> 2) is not earth also abundant and the 'soil and root'  for all that
>>>> be-comes and stirs (into life)? Heidegger also privileges light and the
>>>> clearing afforded by lighting... what does Irigaray say about this
>>>> privilege? Is it on a par with earth and oblivious in the same way of air?
>>>>
>>>> best wishes
>>>>
>>>> michael
>>>>
>>>> >Irigaray's main point in _The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger_ is
>>>> >that Heidegger privileges the element earth and is oblivious to the
>>>> >element air, which is abundant and is where "everything comes to pass
>>>> >and everything stirs" (13).
>>>> >
>>>> >--Noelle McAfee
>>>> >Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii;
>>>> > name="Noelle_McAfee.vcf"
>>>> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>>>> >Content-Description: Card for Noelle McAfee
>>>> >Content-Disposition: attachment;
>>>> > filename="Noelle_McAfee.vcf"
>>>> >
>>>> >Attachment converted: Capitalist Pig:Noelle_McAfee.vcf (TEXT/TBB6)
>>>>(0003587E)
>>>>
>>>>      --- from list french-feminism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>>>
>>>--
>>>*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
>>>Woe to the writer who fails to cultivate
>>>[her] megalomania, who sees it diminished
>>>without taking action. [She] will soon
>>>discover that one does not become *normal*
>>>with impunity.
>>>		-- E.M. Cioran
>>>		"On the Verge of Existence"
>>>
>>>Simone Roberts
>>>Ph.D. Candidate, Studies in Lit.
>>>19 and 20 Century Euro-American Poetics,
>>>	Feminist Philosophy
>>>The University of Texas-Dallas
>>>School of Arts and Humanities
>>>primary email: antiope3-AT-airmail.net
>>>secondary email: douve1-AT-hotmail.com
>>>
>>>Instructor, Art Institute of Dallas
>>>
>>>
>>>     --- from list french-feminism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>>
>>
>>Michael Pennamacoor
>>SandwichDeSign
>>38 Sandown Lees
>>Sandwich
>>Kent CT13 9NZ
>>tel: 01304-617626
>>email: pennamacoor-AT-enterprise.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
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