Luce Irigaray is een in België geboren Franse feministe, filosofe en theoretica. Haar werk onderzoekt taal, psyche en cultuur vanuit een feministisch perspectief. Irigaray onderzoekt diepgaand hoe vrouwen worden waargenomen en gerepresenteerd binnen patriarchale structuren. Haar innovatieve denken daagt traditionele binaire opposities uit en opent wegen voor nieuwe manieren om gender en identiteit te conceptualiseren.
Focusing on the concept of sexuate difference, this book envisions a more just and ecologically aware world. It features original texts from Luce Irigaray's students and collaborators, alongside an introduction by Irigaray herself, offering diverse perspectives on creating a society that values and thrives on gender diversity. The work encourages readers to rethink societal structures and foster a deeper connection to ecological principles through the lens of gender.
Luce Irigaray reflects on three critical concerns of our time: the cultivation
of energy in its many forms, the integration of Asian and Western traditions,
and the reenvisioning of religious figures for the contemporary world. A
philosopher as well as a psychoanalyst, Irigaray draws deeply on her personal
experience in addressing these questions.
A radically subversive critique brings to the fore the masculine ideology
implicit in psychoanalytic theory and in Western discourse in general: woman
is defined as a disadvantaged man, a male construct with no status of her own.
Whilst he broaches the theme of the difference between the sexes, Hegel does not go deep enough into the question of their mutual desire as a crucial stage in our becoming truly human. He ignores the dialectical process regarding sensitivity and sensuousness. And yet this is needed to make spiritual the relation between two human subjectivities differently determined by nature and to ensure the connection between body and spirit, nature and culture, private life and public life. This leads Hegel to fragment human subjectivity into yearnings for art, religion and philosophy thereby losing the unity attained through the cultivation of a longing for the absolute born of a desire for one another as different. Furthermore, our epoch of history is different from the Hegelian one and demands that we consider additional aspects of human subjectivity. This is essential if we are to overcome the nihilism inherent in our traditional metaphysics without falling into a worse nihilism due to a lack of rigorous thinking common today. The increasing power of technique and technologies as well as the task of building a world culture are two other challenges we face. Our sexuate belonging provides us with a universal living determination of our subjectivity – now a dual subjectivity - and also with a natural energy potential which allows us to use technical resources without becoming dependent on them.
The first communication between human beings, the one between the newborn and
the mother, happens through touch. And yet touching and being touched means
experiencing ourselves as living beings.