Language and Liberation

At the University of Texas at Austin, Christina Hendricks is a doctoral candidate in Philosophy and Kelly Oliver is Associate Professor in Philosophy. Oliver is the author of Family Values: Subjects Between Nature and Culture; Womanizing Nietzsche: Philosophy's Relation to "the Feminine"; and Reading Kristeva: Unraveling the Double-Bind. She is also the editor of The Portable Kristeva and Ethics, Politics and Difference in the Writing of Julia Kristeva.

"Mary Daly, Adrienne Rich, Cixous, Derrida, Kristeva, Irigaray, Kant, Frege, and Ovid are some of the thinkers discussed, often with good reviews of their work." — Ethics"This book not only takes on the questions of the political effectiveness of feminist interventions into the use of language, but also presents an eclectic range of approaches which makes the connections and disconnections among these approaches more apparent. It both sharpens the terms of the debate about how and whether the question of language is relevant to a feminist project, and presents evocative points of convergence and divergence on this issue in present feminist theory. These essays are seasoned responses by feminists who clearly know their material and have given this issue a lot of thought. This energy and commitment comes through in their writing." — Tamsin Lorraine, Swarthmore College"As the editors set out in the Introduction, the question of the relationship between language use and women's status is central both to academic feminism and the feminist movement. The issue receives close and continuing attention in several disciplines besides philosophy, including English and foreign languages, linguistics, women's studies, history, sociology, and anthropology. Each of the essays provides insights and makes contributions of intellectual importance." — Susan C. Jarratt, Miami University

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: How to Do (Feminist) Things With WordsChristina Hendricks and Kelly OliverPart One: The Power of Words: Changing Meanings, Changing Social Spaces1. Derogatory Terms: Racism, Sexism, and the Inferential Role Theory of MeaningLynne Tirrell2. Discourse Competence: Or How to Theorize Strong Women SpeakersSara Mills3. Surviving to Speak New Language: Mary Daly and Adrienne RichJane Hedley4. From Revolution to Liberation: Transforming Hysterical Discourse into Analytic DiscourseGeorganna UlaryPart Two: The Power to Speak: Who Is Speaking, from Where?5. Disarticulated Voices: Feminism and PhilomelaElissa Marder6. Confessional Feminisms: Rhetorical Dimensions of First-Person TheorizingSusan David Bernstein7. The Postcolonial Critic: Shifting Subjects, Changing ParadigmsSangeeta RayPart Three: The Power of Masculinist Metaphors: Words That Keep Women in Place8. Sublime Impersonation: The Rhetoric of Personificationin KantNatalie Alexander9. Frege's MetaphorsAndrea Nyc10. Free Gift or Forced Figure? Derrida's Usage of Hymen in "The Double Session"Roberta WestonPart Four: The Power of Feminist Metaphors: Words That Open Spaces for Women11. At the Limits of Discourse: Heterogeneity, Alterity, and the Maternal Body in Kristeva's ThoughtEwa Plonowska Ziarek12. Writing (into) the Symbolic: The Maternal Metaphor in Hélène CixousLisa Walsh13. Language and the Space of the Feminine: Julia Kristeva and Luce IrigarayCynthia BakerAbout the ContributorsIndex