Motivated by student survivors of sexual violence at the ‘University of Nike,’ this dissertation claims the denial of trauma is a central motor to the temporal operation of racialized patriarchy and its philonikian, or ‘victory-loving,’ notions of masculinity. I bear witness to this ‘temporality of denial’ in the institutional responses of the University of Oregon and UO-alum Phil Knight’s Nike corporation to the group sexual assault of Jane Doe by three university men’s basketball players. I also think through philosophies of overcoming this ancient operation of patriarchy in contemporary times.
Simone de Beauvoir suggests that patriarchy provides tempting avenues to flee our freedom of becoming who we are by denying the ambiguity of our human subjectivity. Instead, human potential is funneled into hierarchical gendered destinies derived from ancient perceived binaries of natural, embodied sex difference prescribing masculine material, political, and ontological domination. Rape, war, and conquest are central to this logic, a logic racialized in the Modern era of European colonization. Recent trauma-informed feminist psychology suggests that denial is a psychological mechanism that has efficiently abetted patriarchal oppression throughout history. I suggest Plato, the ‘father’ of the contemporary Academy, may have recognized this in his philosophy. To overcome centuries of masculine bias in interpretation, I undertake a close feminist translation of the war veteran Socrates’ pursuit of the virtue ‘andreia’ (ἀνδρεία), both ‘manliness’ and ‘courage’ in the Greek, through several dialogues contextualized within their dramatic placement in the history of the Peloponnesian War. Socrates’ pursuit of ‘andreia’ includes a critique of the denials of philonikian ‘manliness’ and a hunt for an alternative philosophical understanding. I suggest this wisdom-loving ‘andreia’ is articulated as a gender-critical vision of the strength and courage of love to recollect and rebirth oneself in the aftermath of trauma. Finally, I return to Beauvoir’s feminist philosophy of freedom and its temporality of repetition to further distinguish the ‘forgetting’ of denial from the ‘forgetting’ involved in trauma’s overcoming. The latter requires we collectively sacrifice the destinies of patriarchal ontology as we continue to build a world in which victims of trauma might not only survive, but meaningfully live.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uoregon.edu/oai:scholarsbank.uoregon.edu:1794/23778 |
| Date | 06 September 2018 |
| Creators | Rognlie, Dana |
| Contributors | Mann, Bonnie |
| Publisher | University of Oregon |
| Source Sets | University of Oregon |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Rights | All Rights Reserved. |
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