Les structures du colonialisme d’occupation au Canada perpétuent encore aujourd’hui les dépossessions des Autochtones au bénéfice des occupant·es, ainsi que les tentatives de substitution des occupant·es aux peuples autochtones, suivant ce que Patrick Wolfe appelle une logique de l’élimination. Il ne suffit pas de déclarer notre reconnaissance du territoire autochtone. À titre de Zhaaganaash (occupante blanche sur un territoire Omàmìwinini/algonquin non cédé), il m’incomberait de « participer au processus de décolonisation », suivant l’appel à la justice 15.2 de l’ENFFADA (2019). Toutefois, la logique coloniale, incluant une épistémologie de l’ignorance, conditionne la population générale à naturaliser les hiérarchies désirées et à « ne pas voir » la violence coloniale — historique et contemporaine — au Canada. Alors que mon projet initial visait à cultiver des possibilités de subjectivité occultées par le patriarcat, à la lumière de la pensée de Luce Irigaray, mes études féministes m’ont fait voir l’urgence de la décolonisation. Je vois dans la pensée philosophique de Luce Irigaray une dimension déconstructrice (de la constitution du sujet, de son discours, et de ses « projet[s] téléologiquement constructeur[s] » d’un monde à son image et selon ses intérêts) et une dimension reconstructrice de possibilités alternatives (fondées sur ses concepts de la limite, l’intervalle, l’efflorescence, et l’éthique de la différence sexuelle, entre autres). Plus je lis son œuvre, et plus je lis de perspectives autochtones diverses, plus je vois comment les processus théoriques que décrit Luce Irigaray sont opérationnalisés contre les peuples autochtones sous le colonialisme d’occupation au Canada, et comment certaines nouvelles possibilités imaginées par Luce Irigaray — notamment pour les femmes — exist(ai)ent déjà, concrètement, chez certains peuples autochtones au Canada. Je soutiens que certaines théories irigaréennes sont ouvertes à des prolongements anticoloniaux et décolonisateurs utiles pour ouvrir la réceptivité d’occupant·es, au-delà des fragilités blanches et occupantes, à diverses perspectives autochtones essentielles au désapprentissage de nos aveuglements coloniaux et à la culture de subjectivités relationnelles qui sont spécifiquement décolonisatrices selon la définition de Tuck et Yang (2012). Le colonialisme d’occupation étant trop complexe pour s’expliquer à partir d’une seule théorie (Wolfe, 2006), mon projet consiste à développer un cadre d’analyse multidisciplinaire (incluant, mais non limité à la philosophie irigaréenne), dont la loupe de sélection se constitue de diverses perspectives autochtones. J’explore ce que voudrait dire la décolonisation en termes concrets dans mon quotidien de Zhaaganash.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1989. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 259-265).

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Engaging the question of postmodern ethical intersubjectivity in the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Luce Irigaray I attempt to move beyond Levinas sacrificial view of intersubjectivity with Irigaray's critique of sexual difference. I argue that Levinas view of ethical 'subjectivity' is violently conditioned by a necessary narcissim located in Levinas's description of the feminine dwelling. Instead of narcissim I argue with Irigaray for a way of love that offers an ethical relationship bonded in mutuality. This way of love is rooted in an understanding of the primordial matter of life as good for intersubjective-relationships that do not depend upon narcissim for connection. Concluding this study I suggest that his kind of intersubjectivity can be rooted in a primordial way of life found in the rhythm of breath.

This thesis offers an exploration of the writing of an irreducible feminine difference in four novels by women. Drawing from the work of the Continental feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, I read her conceptual undertaking of sexual difference as precipitating an alternative narrative for feminist thought. The crux of this project involves an inscription of the indeterminable, and thus far elided, category of the feminine, back into the uncontested frameworks of patriarchal knowledge. In so doing, the feminine illuminates what Irigaray calls the “otherwise, elsewhere” that troubles the universality of all masculine discourse. Sexual difference can then be extrapolated from these terms, to anticipate a compelling horizon of possibilities for feminism that lies beyond the deterministic confines of the singular present. Its advent marks the creation of radical feminist lines of inquiry that have yet to be imagined. My study builds on Irigaray’s approach to sexual difference to suggest that the transformative space of literature provides a promising blueprint for its otherwise inchoate articulation. The texts I analyse invoke an anticipatory impulse to think the impossible, and offer an imaginative frame of reference for envisioning these processes of sexual difference. By considering four novels by Marilynne Robinson, Jeanette Winterson, Elena Ferrante, and Rachel Cusk, I illustrate that their engagement with sexual difference is a strategic and combative negotiation of our dominant modes of understanding. More crucially, I examine the dialogue that is inspired by these texts when the intimations of sexual difference are brought together with the evocative possibilities of literature, which might accordingly be extended to affirm a new and reflective cartography for the futures of the feminist imaginary. A further narrative can be located in the sequence of the chapters in my thesis, insofar as each of its novels was published around successive decades apart from 1980- 2014. By alluding to the respective contextual backdrops of these texts, I consider the more overarching trajectory of feminist theory and criticism, in which sexual difference has materialised in its contingent narratives as an enduring, and indeed unsettling, question. It circulates as a speculative theoretical paradigm in the multiple intersections of feminist theory, philosophy, and literary studies. My thesis will argue not only for the altogether difficult and necessary unknowability of feminist thought as it looks ahead to the future, but also for the critical relevance of literary perspectives in explicating these processes of feminist world-making.

Hysteri tillhör en av de mest omdebatterade diagnoserna i psykologins historia. Under några decennier kring förra sekelskiftet sysselsatte sjukdomen dåtidens främsta läkare. I Freuds välkända fallbeskrivningar framträder den hysteriska kvinnan som traumatiserad, både av sina minnen och av sina symtom. Den här uppsatsen syftar till att ifrågasätta en etablerad tolkning av hysteri som individuell patologi. Luce Irigarays konceptualisering av det imaginära och kvinnans symboliska hemlöshet används som utgångspunkt för en kritisk läsning av  Studier i Hysteri. Ansatsen är kvalitativ och teoridriven, metoden mimetisk, analysen är tematiskt strukturerad. Av resultaten framkommer att Irigarays tänkande kan bidra med en fördjupad förståelse av hysterin som någonting som överskrider individuell patologi, som någonting som blottlägger detta psykiska tillstånds relation till imaginära föreställningar om rationalitet och femininitet. De presenterade perspektiven belyser hur hysteri såväl som samtida kvinnosjuklighet formas av ett kulturellt omedvetet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2009.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Diss.--Philosophische Fakultät I--Zürich--Universität, 1990.

x, 244 p. / This dissertation presents a reading of the work of French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, with a particular focus on her most recent texts, which explicitly concern the question of ethics. Responding to concerns that Irigaray's work displays a discontinuity, and that this "later" work is perhaps no longer useful for feminists, I argue that there is in fact a rigorous philosophical continuity to Irigaray's work. In particular, I claim that Irigaray's central philosophical contribution is a transformation of the concept of human subjectivity by way of the thinking of sexuate difference as what I call a "relational limitation." This concept is at once ontological and ethical, and it describes the way in which Irigaray's oeuvre, taken as a continuous whole, transforms philosophical understandings of language, being, and ethics by way of thinking them relationally, combining all of these terms together into a new understanding of human subjectivity that involves a new way of thinking about language and meaning as constitutively shared. I discuss the way in which Irigaray elaborates this new understanding in dialogue with male thinkers, in particular with Lacan and Heidegger. I identify an interest in the issue of relation in Irigaray's earlier work, notably through her engagement with Lacan, in whom she identifies what I call a "non-relational" limit, or a conception of human subjectivity and language that refuses the priority of relation. Through her dialogue with Heidegger, I argue, Irigaray comes closer to articulating her own vision of subjectivity as inherently structured by "relational limitation," but she must surpass both Lacanian and Heideggerian paradigms in order to articulate her own unique vision of sexuate difference as two different, yet interrelated, manners of the unfolding of language and of human subjectivity itself. Thus, my tracing of this continuity of Irigaray's project shows how her most recent work is extremely important for feminist theory, insofar as it elaborates a philosophical and ethical vision of how to improve the (often impoverished and/or violent) relations between men and women. In particular, the concept of a "non-relational" limitation versus a "relational limitation" provides a helpful way of understanding the underlying causes and dynamics of the distorted relationship between the sexes under patriarchy--a point that I illustrate with the example of domestic violence. / Committee in charge: Beata Stawarska, Co-Chair; Alejandro A. Vallega, Co-Chair; Theodore A. Toadvine, Member; Karen C. McPherson, Outside Member