Who is Luce Irigaray ?

Luce Irigaray (born 1932 in Belgium) is a Belgian feminist, philosopher, linguist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and cultural theorist. She is best known for her works Speculum of the Other Woman (1974) and This Sex Which Is Not One (1977).

Biography

Irigaray received a Master's Degree in Philosophy and Arts from the University of Louvain (Leuven) in 1955. She taught in a Brussels school from 1956 to 1959, then moved to France in the early 1960s. In 1961 she received a Master's Degree in psychology from the University of Paris. In 1962 she received a Diploma in Psychopathology. From 1962 to 1964 she worked for the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) in Belgium. She then began work as a research assistant at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris.
In the 1960s Irigaray participated in Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic seminars. She trained as and became an analyst. In 1968 she received a Doctorate in Linguistics. In 1969 she analyzed Antoinette Fouque, a leader of the French women's movement. From 1970 to 1974 she taught at the University of Vincennes. At this time Irigaray belonged to the École Freudienne de Paris (EFP), a school directed by Lacan.
Irigaray's second doctoral thesis, "Speculum of the Other Woman", was closely followed by the termination of her employment at Vincennes University.
In the second semester of 1982, Irigaray held the chair in Philosophy at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Her research here resulted in the publication of An Ethics of Sexual Difference.
Irigaray has conducted research since the 1980s at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique in Paris on the differences between the language of women and the language of men. In 1986 she transferred from the Psychology Commission to the Philosophy Commission as the latter is her preferred discipline.
In December 2003 the University of London conferred on Luce Irigaray the degree of Doctor of Literature honoris causa. From 2004 to 2006 Irigaray held a position as a visiting professor in the department of Modern Languages at the University of Nottingham. As of 2007 she will be affiliated with the University of Liverpool.
In 2008, Luce Irigaray was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by University College, London.

Contributions to feminist theory

Irigaray takes inspiration from the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and of Jacques Lacan, from the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and from the deconstruction approach of Jacques Derrida. Her work aims to reveal a perceived masculinist philosophy underlying language and gestures^{[clarification needed]} toward a "new" feminine language that would allow women to express themselves outside of a phallocentric discourse. Women must thus recast discourse in a form that does not preserve an implied masculine subject, jamming the machine of language in order to rethink the relations that make possible meaning, knowledge and presence. Irigaray aims not to transform masculinity, but to transform thinking itself^[1]. Irigaray's work also challenges what she calls phallogocentrism: she notes that society's two gender categories, man and woman, are in fact just one, man, as he is made the universal referent; and therefore she works towards a theory of difference.
Irigaray wishes to create two equally positive and autonomous terms, and to acknowledge two (at least, she sometimes adds) sexes, not one. Following this line of thought, with the theories of Lacan (mirror stage, forms of "sexuation") and of Derrida (logocentrism) in the background, Irigaray also criticises the favouring of unitary truth within patriarchal society. In her theory for creating a new disruptive form of feminine writing (Écriture féminine), she focuses on the child’s pre-Oedipal phase when experience and knowledge is based on bodily contact, primarily with the mother. Here lies one major interest of Irigaray's: the mother-daughter relationship, which she considers devalued in patriarchal society. In the realm of Feminist theory, Irigaray has become one of the most prominent figures of what is sometimes called French feminism, (called so misleadingly in the opinion of Simone de Beauvoir)^[2], alongside Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous. Tina Beattie has interpreted her views from the perspective of Roman Catholic theology.
Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, in their book critiquing postmodern thought (Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science), criticize Irigaray on several grounds. In their view, Irigaray wrongly asserts that E=mc² is a "sexed equation" because "it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us"; and for asserting that fluid mechanics is unfairly neglected because it deals with "feminine" fluids in contrast to "masculine" rigid mechanics.^[3]

Bibliography

Speculum of the Other Woman 1974, (Eng. trans. 1985)
This Sex Which Is Not One 1977, (Eng. trans. 1985)
When Our Lips Speak Together 1977
And the One Doesn't Stir without the Other 1979, (Eng. trans. 1981)
Marine Lover: Of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1980, (Eng. trans. 1980)
Elemental Passions 1982, (Eng. trans. 1992)
Belief Itself 1983
The Forgetting of Air: In Martin Heidegger 1983, (Eng. trans. 1999)
An Ethics of Sexual Difference 1984, (Eng. trans. 1993)
To Speak is Never Neutral 1985, (Eng. trans. 2002)
Sexes and Genealogies 1987, (Eng. trans. 1993)
Thinking the Difference: For a Peaceful Revolution 1989, (Eng. trans. 1993)
Je, tu, nous: Towards a Culture of Difference 1990, (Eng. trans. 1993)
I Love to You: Sketch for a Felicity Within History 1990, (Eng. trans. 1993)
Democracy Begins Between Two 1994, (Eng. trans. 2000)
To Be Two 1997, (Eng. trans. 2001)
Between East and West 1999, (Eng. trans. 2001)
The Way of Love 2002
Sharing the World (Eng. trans. 2008)

Notes

^ Luce Irigaray, "The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine", in This Sex Which Is Not One, translated by Catherine Porter, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985)
^ Morgan, Robin. (1984). Sisterhood is Global. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 234–235. ISBN 0-385-17797-6.
^ Dawkins, Richard (9 July 1998). "Postmodernism disrobed". Nature, vol. 394. pp. 141–143. http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/dawkins.html. Retrieved March 18, 2008.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luce_Irigaray

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