Elizabeth Grosz

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Space, Time and Perversion : Essays on the Politics of Bodies by Elizabeth Grosz

Marking a ground-breaking moment in the debate surrounding bodies and "body politics," Elizabeth Grosz's Space, Time and Perversion contends that only by resituating and rethinking the body will feminism and cultural analysis effect and unsettle the knowledges, disciplines and institutions which have controlled, regulated and managed the body both ideologically and materially. Exploring the fields of architecture, philosophy, and--in a controversial way--queer theory, Grosz shows how these fields have conceptually stripped bodies of their specificity, their corporeality, and the vestigal traces of their production as bodies. Her tour de corpe investigates the work of Michel Foucault, Teresa de Lauretis, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler and Alphonso Lingis. Grosz considers their work by examining the ways in which the functioning of bodies transforms understandings of space and time, knowledge and desire.

Beginning with an exposition of the epistemological implications of bodily and sexual difference, Grosz examines the effects such knowledge have on the reception of meaning. She looks at the relationship between the knowledge of difference and the way that knowledge validates, affirms, avows and valorizes subjects. Grosz then extends this analysis to an investigation of the relationship between space, time, bodies and the spatial "arts" such as architecture, urban planning and geography.

In the last section, Grosz moves toward a radical consideration of bodies and their relationship to transgression and perversity. Controversially showing the ways in which "queer" theory fails to offer a truly transformative conception of bodies and their politics, Grosz finds "queer" a reactive category "which sees itself in opposition to a straight norm and thus defines itself in terms of this norm." Consequentially, "queer" theory inherits the acceptance of an entire range of sexual practices, without "asking what they share and without taking into account the profound tension that may exist among these practices."

Grosz's Space, Time and Perversion is a diverse and incisive collection of essays from a renowned feminist philosopher.

Becomings : Explorations in Time, Memory and Futures by E. A. Grosz (Editor)

With the advent of the new millennium, the notion of the future, and of time in general, has taken on greater significance in postmodern thought. Although the equally pervasive and abstract concept of space has generated a vast body of disciplines, time, and the related idea of "becoming" (transforming, mutating, and metamorphosing) have until now received little theoretical attention.

This volume explores the ontological, epistemic, and political implications of rethinking time as a dynamic and irreversible force. Drawing on ideas from the natural sciences, as well as from literature, philosophy, politics, and cultural analyses, its authors seek to stimulate further research in both the sciences and the humanities which highlights the temporal foundations of matter and culture.

The first section of the volume, "The Becoming of the World," provides a broad introduction to the concepts of time. The second section, "Knowing and Doing Otherwise," addresses the forces within cultural and intellectual practices which produce various becomings and new futures. It also analyzes how alternative models of subjectivity and corporeality may be generated through different conceptions of time. "Global Futures," the third section, considers the possibilities for the social, political, and cultural transformation of individuals and nations.

Contributors Linda Alcoff, Syracuse University Edward Casey, State University of New York, Stony Brook Pheng Cheah, Northwestern University Claire Colebrook, Monash University Elizabeth Grosz, State University of New York, Buffalo Eleanor Kaufman, Cornell University Manuel de Landa, Columbia University Alphonso Lingis, Pennsylvania State University Dorothea Olkowski, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs John Rajchman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Gail Weiss, George Washington University

Sexual Difference and the Problem of Essentialism

By Elizabeth Grosz

Excerpt:

Feminist theory is necessarily implicated in a series of complex negotiations between a number of tense and antagonistic forces that are often unrecognized and unelaborated. It is a self-conscious reaction on the one hand to the overwhelming masculinity of privileged and historically dominant knowledges, acting as a kind of counterweight to the imbalances resulting from the male monopoly of the production and reception of knowledges. On the other hand, it is also a response to the broad political aims and objectives of feminist struggles. Feminist theory is thus bound to two kinds of goals, two commitments or undertakings that exist only in an uneasy and problematic relationship. This tension means that feminists have had to tread a fine line either between intellectual rigor (as it has been defined in male terms) and political commitment (as feminists see it)--that is, between the risks posed by patriarchal recuperation and those of a conceptual sloppiness inadequate to the long-term needs of feminist struggles--or between acceptance in male terms and commitment to women's terms...

Elizabeth Grosz Bibliography

I. Books and Monographs

Architecture from the Outside : Essays on Virtual & Real Space, Writing Architecture Series (Writing Architecture) by Elizabeth Grosz, Peter Eisenman MIT, Cambridge 2001

Becomings : Explorations in Time, Memory, and Futures by Elizabeth Grosz (Editor), Cornell, New York, 2000

Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies. Routledge, New York and London; and Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1995.

Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Indiana University Press, Bloomington; and Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1994.

Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction. Routledge, London and New York, 1990.

Sexual Subversions: Three French Feminists. Allen and Unwin, Sydney; Unwin and Hyman, London and Boston, 1989.

"Irigaray and the Divine," Local Consumption Occasional Papers (Monography No. 9), 1986.

II. Edited Anthologies and Special Issues of Journals:

E. Grosz and E. Probyn (eds) Sexy Bodies: The Strange Carnalities of Feminism (Routledge, London, 1995).

E. Grosz (ed) Special issue of Hypatia (Vol. 6, No. 2) on Feminism and the Body, 1991.

B. Caine, E. A. Grosz and M de Lepervanche (eds), Crossing Boundaries: Feminism and the Critique of Knowledges, Allen and Unwin, Sydney; and Unwin and Hyman, London and New York, 1988.

J. Allen and E. Grosz (eds) Special issue of Australian Feminist Studies on "Feminism and the Body," No. 5, November, 1987.

E. A. Grosz, T. Threadgold, D. Kelly et al (eds), Futur*Fall: Excursions into Postmodernity, Power Institute Publications, Sydney, 1987.

C. Pateman and E. Gross (eds) Feminist Challenges: Social and Political Theory, Allen and Unwin, Sydney; Unwin and Hyman, London; and Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1986. T. Threadgold, E. Gross, G. Kress and M. A. K. Halliday (eds), Language, Semiotics, Ideology, SASSCS, Sydney, 1986.

III. Articles, Chapters, etc.

"Ethics, Eros and Irigaray," Metaphilosophy Vol 27 Nos 1 & 2, Jan-April 1996, 248-55.

"Theorising Corporeality: Bodies, Sexuality and the Feminist Academy" (an interview) Melbourne Journal of Politics, Vol. 22, 1994, 3-29.

"Woman, *Chora*, Dwelling," Architecture New York, No. 4, January-February, 1994, 22-28; and in Postmodern Cities and Spaces, eds. S. Watson and K. Gibson, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995, 47-58.

"Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray in the Flesh," Thesis Eleven, No. 36, 1993, 37-60; and in Merleau-Ponty: Across the Analytic-Continental Divide. Eds. D. Olkowski and J. Morley, Humanities Press, (forthcoming) 1996.

"A Thousand Tiny Sexes: Feminism and Rhizomatics," Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy, Vol. 12, No. 2, Sept., 1993, 167-179; and in Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of Philosophy, eds. C. V. Boundas and D. Olkowski, Routledge, New York, 1994, 187-210.

"Le corps et les connaissances: Le feminisme et la crise de la raison," Sociologie et Societes, Vol 24, No. 1, Avril, 1992, 47-66.

"Lesbian Fetishism?" differences Vol3, No. 2, 1991, 39-54; also in Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, E. Apter and W. Pietz (eds), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1993, 101-115.

"Freaks: A Study of Human Anomalies," Social Semiotics, No. 2, 1991, 22-38.

"Criticism, Feminism and the Institution: An Interview with Gayatri Spivak," Thesis Eleven, nos 10/11, 1985, 175-89; reprinted in The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Routledge, London and New York, 1990, 1-17; and in Intellectuals: Aesthetics, Politics, Academics, ed. Bruce Robbins, University of Minnesota Press, 1990, 153-71.

"Judaism and Exile: The Ethics of Otherness," New Formations, No. 12, December, 1990, 77-88; reprinted in Space and Place: Theories of Identity and Location, eds. E. Carter, I. Donald, and J. Squires, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1993, 57-72.

"Dora, Hysteria and Femininity," Australian Journal of Psychotherapy, Vol. 8 Nos. 1/2, 1989, 62-76.

"Forging a New Women's Writing," Australian-Canadian Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1988, 113-119.

"Irigaray, the Hetero and the Homo," Gay Information, Nos. 17/18, 1988, 37-44; also in Engaging with Irigaray, eds. C. Burke, N. Schor, and M. Whitford, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, 335-350.

"Psychoanalysis and the Imaginary Body," Feminist Subjects, Multi-Media, Cultural Methodologies," eds. P. Florence and D. Reynolds, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1995, 183-196.

"Irigaray and the Divine," Transitions in Continental Philosophy. (Selected Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Vol 18), eds. A. Dallery and S. Watson, with E. Bower, SUNY Press, Albany: 1994, 117-128; and in Transfigurations: Theology and French Feminism, eds. M. Kim and S. St. Ville, Fortress Press, 1994, 199-214.

"Feminist Theory and the Politics of Art," Dissonances: Feminism and the Arts 1970-90, ed. C. Moore, Allen and Unwin, in conjunction with Artspace, Sydney, 1994, 139-153.

"Irigaray's Notion of Sexual Morphology," Reimagining Women: Representations of Women in Culture, eds. S. Neuman and G. Stephenson, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1993, 82-95.

"Lived Spatiality (The Spaces of Corporeal Desire)," Culture Lab, ed. B. Boigon, Princeton Architectural Press, 1993, 167-179.

"Nietzsche and the Stomach for Knowledge," Nietzsche, Feminism and Political Theory, ed. P. Patton, Routledge, London, 1993, 49-70.

"Bodies and Knowledges: Feminism and the Crisis of Reason," Feminist Epistemologies, ed. L. Alcoff and E. Potter, Routledge, New York, 1993, 187-216.

"Signs, Meanings and Matter in Abstract Art," Cadences: Icon and Abstraction in Context, ed. G. Sangster, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1991, 49-61.

"Feminism and Anti-Humanism," Discourse and Difference, A. Milner and C. Worth (eds), Monash University Press, Melbourne, 1990, 63-76.

"Inscriptions and Body-Maps: Representation and the Corporeal," Feminine/Masculine/Representation, T. Threadgold and A. Cranny-Francis (eds), Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1990, 62-74.

"The Body of Signification," Abjection, Melancholia and Love: The Work of Julia Kristeva, J. Fletcher and A. Benjamin (eds), Routledge, London and New York, 1990, 80-104.

"Contemporary Conceptions of Power," Feminist Theory: Critique and Construct, S. Gunew (ed), Routledge, London and New York, 1990, 59-120; reprinted from Deakin University Press, 1985.

"Philosophy, Women and the Feminine," Feminist Theory: Critique and Construct, S. Gunew (ed), Routledge, London and New York, 1990, 147-175; reprinted from Deakin University Press, 1985.

"A Note on Essentialism and Difference," Feminist Theory: Critique and Construct, S. Gunew (ed), Routledge, London and New York, 1990, 332-344; reprinted from Deakin University Press, 1985; also published in Inscriptions, No. 5, 1989; and in The Essential Difference: Another Look at Essentialism, ed. N. Schor, Indiana University Press, 1994.

"Desire and the Body in Recent French Feminisms," Intervention, nos. 21/22, 1988, 28-34.

"Feminist In(ter)ventions in Knowledges," Crossing Boundaries: Feminism and The Critique of Knowledges, B. Caine, E. A. Grosz and M. de Lepervanche (eds), Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1988, 92-107.

(with M. de Lepervanche) "Feminism and Science," Crossing Boundaries: Feminism and The Critique of Knowledges, B. Caine, E. A. Grosz and M. de Lepervanche (eds), Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1988, 5-28.

"Space, Time and Bodies," On the Beach, No. 13, 1988, 13-27.

"French Feminisms and Representation," Reasons to be Cheerful, Documents No. 1, George Paton Galleries, 1988, 25-33.

"Desire, Bodies and Representations," Artlink vol. 8, No. 1, March, 1988; reprinted in Hermes Vol. 4, 1988, 34-51.

"Does Every Picture Tell a Story? Art and Theory," Sighting References: Ciphers, Systems and Codes in Recent Australian Visual Art, G. Sangster (ed), Artspace, Sydney, 1987, 16-25.

"Introduction: What is Post-Modernism?" Futur*Fall: Excursions into Post-Modernity, E. A. Grosz, T. Threadgold, D. Kelly, et al (eds), Power Institute Publications, Sydney, 1987, 7-17.

"Language and the Limits of the Body," Futur*Fall: Excursions into Post-Modernity, E. A. Grosz, T. Threadgold, D. Kelly, et al (eds), Power Institute Publications, Sydney, 1987, 106-118.

"Philosophy, Subjectivity and the Body," Feminist Challenges: Social and Political Theory, C. Pateman and E. Gross (eds), Allen and Unwin, Sydney; Unwin and Hyman, London; and Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1986, 125-144.

"What is Feminist Theory?" Feminist Challenges: Social and Political Theory, C. Pateman and E. Grosz (eds), Allen and Unwin, Sydney; Unwin and Hyman, London; and Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1986, 190-205.

"Feminist Theory and the Challenge to Disciplines," Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 10, No. 5, 1987, 475-480.

"Notes Towards a Corporeal Feminism," Australian Feminist Studies No. 5, 1987, 1-17.

"The People of the Book," Art and Text, No. 26, 1987, 32-42.

"Speculum Feminarum," Southern Review, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1987, 94-102.

"Derrida and the Limits of Philosophy," Thesis Eleven, No. 14, 1986, 26-44.

"Review-Article on Irigaray's Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which is Not One," Australian Feminist Studies, No. 2, 1986, 63-79.

"Deconstruction and Feminism: Derrida and Irigaray," Intervention No. 20, 1986, 70-81.

(with M. Campioni) "Love's Labours Lost: Marxism and Feminism," Intervention No. 17, 1983, 113-143; reprinted in A Reader in Feminist Knowledge, S. Gunew (ed), Routledge, London and New York, 1991, 366-397.

Names Index:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
| Authors Index | Scholars Index |