Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T21:08:19.180Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Diabolical Strategy of Mimesis: Luce Irigaray's Reading of Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Abstract

In this essay I explore the dynamic between Luce Irigaray and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as it unfolds in An Ethics of Sexual Difference (1993). Irigaray's strategy of mimesis is a powerful feminist tool, both philosophically and politically. Regarding textual engagement as analogous for relations between self and other beyond the text, I deliver a cautionary message: mimetic strategy is powerful but runs the risk of silencing the voice of the other.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beauvoir, Simone de. [1949] 1987. The second sex. Middlesex: Penguin; New York: Vintage Books, 1989.Google Scholar
Burke, Carolynet al. eds. 1995. Engaging with Irigaray: Feminist philosophy and modern European thought. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chanter, Tina. 1995. Ethics of eros: Irigaray's rewriting of the philosophers. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Critchley, Simon. 1992. The problem of closure in Derrida (part 1). Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 23 (1): 319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1966. La phénoménologie et la clôture de la metaphysique. Unpublished.Google Scholar
Husserl, Edmund. [1913] 1989. Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. Trans. Rojcewicz, R. and Schuwer, A.Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. [1977] 1985. This sex which is not one. Trans. Porter, Catherine with Burke, Carolyn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. [1982] 1992. Elemental passions. Trans. Collie, Joanne and Still, Judith. London: Athlone; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. [1984] 1993. An ethics of sexual difference. Trans. Burke, Carolyn and Gill, Gillian C.Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kozel, Susan. 1996. The story is told as a history of the body: Strategies of mimesis in the work of Irigaray and Bausch. In Meaning in motion: New cultural studies in dance, ed. Desmond, Jane C.Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Le Doeuff, Michèle. [1989] 1991. Hipparchia's choice: An essay concerning women, philosophy, etc. Trans. Selous, Trista. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Merleau‐Ponty, Maurice. [1961] 1985. Eye and mind. Trans. Dallery, Carleton. In The primacy of perception, ed. Edie, James. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Merleau‐Ponty, Maurice. [1964] 1987a. The visible and the invisible. Trans. Lingis, Alphonso. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Merleau‐Ponty, Maurice. [1960] 1987b. Signs. Trans. McCleary, Richard. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Merleau‐Ponty, Maurice. [1945] 1989. The phenomenology of perception. Trans. Smith, Colin. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schor, Naomi. 1995. Previous engagements: The reception of Irigaray, and this essentialism which is not one: Coming to grips with Irigaray. In Engaging with Irigaray: Feminist philosophy and modern European thought. See Carolyn Burke et al. 1995.Google Scholar
Whitford, Margaret. 1991. Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the feminine. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Whitford, Margaret. 1995. Reading Irigaray in the nineties. In Engaging with Irigaray: Feminist philosophy and modern European thought. See Carolyn Burke et al. 1995.Google Scholar