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    5 views25 pages

    C 3 S 6 Ant 4 Iyap

    Uploaded by

    Laura Leander Wilde
    mn

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 25
    Meaghan Morris, Sneja Gunew, Anne Freadman, ‘Forum: Feminism and Interpretation Theory’ Southern Review, volume16, no.1, March 1983:149-173 Forum: Feminism and Interpretation Theory I Introduction In order to suggest some directions that a discussion ofthese to very dense papers might take, T would like to begin by iaventiag some 1 want to suggest that the exchange between these papers by Sneja Gunew and Anne Freadman cannot be read — at least, for femate purposes — in terms of a simple opposition between deconstruction and Jormalism; and also, that the exchange between both papers and the conference cannot be reduced — again, for feminist purposes tes confrontation between feminism on the one hand and Interpretation theory on the other. Pm assuming that the invention of what I've just called “feminist purposes” is, in very general terms, what both papers are avons To be more specific, I suggest that Gunew and Freadman have both considered the prospect of discourses changing hands, and at this level the Papers share some common problems and assumptions. Both ars con, cemed, for example, with the problem of silence —orrather, the womaaly silence produced in and by discourses: Gunew, in terms of the function ay “woman” as the prima materia of figurative discourse; and Freadman, in {erms of the need to transform discursive material which, untransformed, leaves a woman no place from which to speak, and’ nothing to say, Secondly, in dealing with these questions both papers are based ong Tepudiation of essentialism, whether of a feminist or an interpretative variety. It is this repudiation which allows the projects of the papers to be complementary as the deconstruction of femininity metaphors on the one ‘hand, and on the other, the construction of women's writing. Finally, in order to carry out these projeets, both papers deploy a notion of textual strategy. Since “textual strategy” isa wildly suggest+ve notion at the moment, I'd like to constrain it a litle and give it a sense at ones more modest, and more precise, than that of the unbridied interpretative orgy promised by some recent North American anthologies, A first constraint, I would suggest, is provided by the very notion of discourses “changing hands.” As the philosopher Michele Le Dovuff Suggests,! when Simone de Beauvoir took the initially uapromising material provided by the famous “holes and slime” metaphysics of Sartrian existentialism and turned it into a discourse which has mobilised women's ‘movements in the Western world for the last thirty years, something more ‘was necessary, for that to happen, than the simple transfer of that discourse from the hands of a man to the hands of a woman, The problem Souther Review, 16 (rch 1983, 150 Morris/ Gunew} Freadman of strategy we are concerned with here is, quite specifically, the problem of that “something more.” A second constraint may be produced by considering thestatus of the “we” that I have just assorted as the subject of this forum. And here, in order to delimit further our notion of strategy and the practices it might imply, L would like to differentiate this “we” from that presupposed by the ‘question put to this conference by E.D. Hirsch: “What kind of culture do ‘we want to foster?”? I would argue that Hirsch’s formulation of current debates in literary theory — including the debate between Hirsch himself and certain deconstructionist practices — presupposes the unity of a humanistic culture confronted with a choice of futures. As feminists, Gunew, Freadman and I are obliged to assume the disunity of humanistic culture if not the desirability of its positive disunification. Furthermore, irsch’s formulation of the question of power and authority in that culture in terms of a distinction between “autocratic” and “allocratic” reading assumes not only an opposition between Self and Other, but also a unified reader (though not necessarily, of course, an individual, subjective reader). Since the publication of The Second Sex, the opposition between Self and Other has been a site of feminist interventions, rather than a support for ‘those interventions or a solution to the problems they pose, And so the assumption of this forum —as discourse —isnot a unified reader noreven a unity of readers, but rather that the subject of feminist reading and ‘writing practices is an “I” in at least two places at once, This does not mean that it must be contradictory: a contradictory “T" (the subject of some Marxist discourses) may be understood as unified precisely by its constitution from at least two places at once. Instead, a feminist “T"is one which is pluralised in a practice of displacement: and I take it that theorising that practice of displacement is a way of dealing with the problem of transforming and transferring discourses, as well as of inventing a textual strategy in terms of its feminist aims. [tis in these terms that I would like to read the strategies of the two papers presented here. If the “T” of the forum is already in at least two places at once, each paper itself effects a shift of speaking position. Gunew's begins from a generalised position as feminist critic, end moves towards articulating a specific practice as feminist analyst, a practice informed by the methods of deconstruction. Freadman’s paper moves from formalism to feminism; or rather, to a position in which itis possible to speak as the subject of both discourses at once. That is one reason why the exchange cannot be read as deconstruction versus formalism. Buta stronger reason, I think, is that two quite specific projects have been defined in the process of shifting. Gunew begins 2s a feminist “I,” and proposes to invoke the aid of deconstruction ina project of working deconstruction against itself — not to enjoy the pleasures of infinite regress so alluring to many deconstructionists (whatever you can do, Ietn do better”), butin orderto dismantle what she calls the “ietaphorisation of woman” on which some deconstructionist practices depend. Freadman, in beginning with the question, “What can I do with formalism? proposes the rather scandalous project of secing how Feminism and Interpretation Theory 151 formalism can take itself to the point of raising feminist questions or, indeed, political questions in general, At that point, it becomes possible to use both papers to argue that no feminist practice in literary theory can be committed to an ideology of interpretative free play, since the pertinence of our textual strategies is always constrained in and by an interaction with the changing discourses of feminism. It is for this reason that the forum does not constitute ae opposition between feminism and interpretation theory, but rather Politics of movement between them. Yet itis also possible —for feminist purposes — to definea difference between the two papers. If they were to be related in terms of their continuity, the relation would be that Gunew’s outlines for usan argument 88 to why discourses must change hands, while Freadman's uses Indiana to show how that can happen in one object. But the procedures used are pethaps not easily reconcilable. Gunew is concerned by the problem of femininity metaphors atthe level of discourses in general, and so claims the deconstructionist right to treat metaphors 2s “pivots,” detachable from the enunciative position from which they are produced. Freadman’s paper, 1 think, contests the value of this procedure, and in its analysis of the mirror ‘and la lime in Indiana implies thet, when dealing with metaphors of the feminine, we are not always or necessarily dealing with the same metaphor at all. If this is a difference articulated by our plurality, then the last point I ‘want to stress is that for us, speaking here, this plurality and this difference are deployed not as a quality inherent in the female (and still less as a metaphor for either truth or art) but rather as defining quite precisely the Parameters of a coherent — feminist — debate. Meaghan Mortis | Michele Le Docuff, “Operative Philosophy: Simone de Beauvoir and Existentialism,” Wdeology and Consciousness, No, 6 (1979, pp. 47.38. ? ED. Hitech, Jr, “The Politics of Theories of interpret 235.47, 8," Creal Inquiry, 9 (1982), Il Feminist Criticism: Positions and Questions In the beginning . . . “The individual spirit cannot see further than into its own mother, from which it derives its knowiedge of origins and in which it stands; for it is impossible that this individual spirit should by its ‘own natural power see into another principle and to behold it, 152 Morris Gunew] Freadman unless born again within it” Jakob Boehme, chap. 7 of Die drei Principien gétilichen Wesens (The Three Principles of Divine Being). My translation perforce remains rough: and Boehme, it should be cautioned, uses “Mutter” asa quasi-alchemical erm. But the anthropomorphic and psychological connotation is unavoid- able.! ‘The alchemists give materia prima — which they regard as both the primary substance of the world and the basic substance of the soul <2 large number of names. The object of this multiplicity is notso much to protect Hermetism from the unqualified, as to underline the fact that this materia is contained inall things, and that likewise it contains all things. They call it‘ses", because it carries within t all forms, as the sea the waves, or ‘earth’ because it nourishes all that ‘onit lives. Iti the ‘seed of things, the ‘basic moistness' Giumiditas radicalis) the hyle. Itis ‘virgin’ on account of its infinite purity and receptivity and ‘meretricious’, because it seems to cling to every form. Itis also compared, as we have seen, to the ‘hidden stone’, although in its primordial condition itis to be distinguished from the ‘philosophers’ stone’, which is the fruit of the whole work, Materia prima can be considered as ‘stone’ only in that it remains jimmutable.? couvade: a male simulacrum of childbirth An{other Parodie Prologue Enough of metaphors and metonymies, condensation and dis- placement. Since women are themselves gifts/ Gift (poison), I need to give nothing away. Let me merely pour myself into your collective ear. First, 2 story, an embryo rather than a further abstract, and illegitimate at that. When, on hearing of this conference (on hearing that there was @ rummaging for feminist voices in the undergrowth) I sought the hermeneutics section in a local English Department library, the librarian stopped me with a friendly interrogation. “Hermeneutics,” I murmured; she understood “hermetic” — that was her signifier. Herein the nomen was fan omen. A sign from . .. ? Well, we won't bother with origins. What was this conference aid hermeneutics about if not the secret and the passwords and gangs? And to which chapter or enclave would feminist criticism belong? Did it help to begin at the beginning of hermeneutic enterprises with biblical exegesis? In that case, what do we do with that phrase which precedes the entrance of the male mother in the biblical text? God “creates” the binary opposition of heaven and eatti; or are they merely an echo of the previous opposition of “beginning” and “God”? We will try to hatch this hermetic puzzle instead of leavingit as the philosphers' stone, the gold standard, the metaphor for truth; for in that ‘metaphor of alchemical labour, “woman” is only the incubator. The “we” in the previous sentence is a shifty pronoun designed either to entice you i | Feminism and Interpretation Theory 153 into communal exchange or to provoke you to gang warfare and a last supper. We shall see. . , Feminist criticism is a term which seems explicitly to pose the notion of “gangs.” And yet, isn't this merely being honest about certain prejudices ‘that exist also in other horizons of critical tradition, but which are not acknowledged as readily? To speak historically, as Gadamer reminds us,? is to speak inevitably with certain prejudices, which can never be fully known but which one must attempt to know. We all possess these political components in our various subject-positions, which in turn articulate ‘various discourses. We don't all choose to disclose them as part of the conditions for speaking, be they religious,‘ or national, or gendered, or combination of these. To speak as a feminist critic means no less than to be alert to the ways in which “woman” is constructed in various signifying practices, and to use this awareness to deconstruct texts. Barbara Johnson in her recent introduction to Derrida’s Dissemination, formulates the

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