Synopses & Reviews
"We translate what American women write, they never translate our texts," wrote Helene Cixous almost two decades ago. Her complaint about the unavailability of French feminist writing in English has long since been rectified, but the situation for feminist writing by German-speaking philosophers remains today what it was then. This pioneering collection takes a giant step forward to overcoming this handicap, revealing the full richness and variety of feminist critique ongoing in this linguistic community. The essays offer fresh readings of thinkers from the Enlightenment to the present, including those often discussed by feminists everywhere—such as Freud, Habermas, Hegel, Kant, and Rousseau—as well as some less subjected to feminist critique such as Benjamin and Weininger.
In their Introduction the editors provide the context for understanding both how these essays fit into the larger picture of developing feminist theory and what makes their contribution in some ways distinctive.
Synopsis
"We translate what American women write, they never translate our texts," wrote Helene Cixous almost two decades ago. Her complaint about the unavailability of French feminist writing in English has long since been rectified, but the situation for feminist writing by German-speaking philosophers remains today what it was then. This pioneering collection takes a giant step forward to overcoming this handicap, revealing the full richness and variety of feminist critique ongoing in this linguistic community. The essays offer fresh readings of thinkers from the Enlightenment to the present, including those often discussed by feminists everywhere—such as Freud, Habermas, Hegel, Kant, and Rousseau—as well as some less subjected to feminist critique such as Benjamin and Weininger.
In their Introduction the editors provide the context for understanding both how these essays fit into the larger picture of developing feminist theory and what makes their contribution in some ways distinctive.
About the Author
Cornelia Klinger is a Permanent Fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.
Herta Nagl-Dockal is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna.
Table of Contents
Introduction : Feminist philosophy in German / Herta Nagl-Docekal and Cornelia Klinger (translated by James Dodd) -- Femininity and critique of reason in the French Enlightenment / Lieselotte Steinbrèugge (translated by Stephanie Morgenstern) -- Julie, or the feminine difference : a new reading of Rousseau's Nouvelle Hâeloèise / Christine Garbe (translated by Melanie Richter-Bernburg) -- Philosophy of history as a theory of gender difference : the case of Rousseau / Herta Nagl-Docekal (translated by Sabrina Vèolz) -- Schopenhauer or Kant: gender difference between critique and spirit of the age / Ursula Pia Jauch (translated by James Dodd) -- The female as ethical resource in the philosophy of Hegel / Heidemarie Bennent-Vahle (translated by Christine M. Manteghi) -- Woman-landscape-artwork : alternative realms or patriarchal reserves? / Cornelia Klinger (translated by James Dodd) -- Is a feminist critique of logic possible? / Kèathe Trettin (translated by George Matthews) -- Georg Simmel : modernism and the philosophy of the sexes / Ursula Menzer (translated by Melanie Richter-Bernburg) -- Explicating the image of woman in psychoanalytic discourse : Sigmund Freud's theory of femininity / Christa Rohde-Dachser (translated by Stephanie Morgenstern) -- Fin-de-siáecle Vienna : a movement for or against womanhood? Some thoughts on Weininger and Freud / Ingvild Birkhan (translated by Christine Manteghi) -- Woman : the most precious loot in the "Triumph of allegory" : gender relations in Walter Benjamin's Passagen-Werk / Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky (translated by Dana Hollander) -- A legacy of the Enlightenment : imagination and the reality of the "maternal" in Max Horkheimer's writings / Mechthild Rumpf (translated by Melanie Richter-Bernburg) -- Reason, gender, and the paradox of rationalization / Elisabeth List.