Revolutionary Time

Fanny Söderbäck is Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. She is the coeditor (with Henriette Gunkel and Chrysanthi Nigianni) of Undutiful Daughters: New Directions in Feminist Thought and Practice and the editor of Feminist Readings of Antigone, also published by SUNY Press.

"This provocative, unique examination of these two philosophers' understandings of time provides a thought-provoking look at how time continues to be used in sexual differencing. Revolutionary Time will be an excellent resource for those interested in the philosophy of time, feminism, race studies, and the politics of power … Highly recommended." — CHOICE"Revolutionary Time makes a distinctive contribution to contemporary feminist and continental philosophical thought. By engaging Kristeva and Irigaray in depth alongside one another, and making time the guiding thread for reading their work, the author generates insights that are not to be found elsewhere in the existing literature. Through its development of the concept of revolutionary time, the book offers rich resources for thinking about temporalization in its existential, ontological, and political dimensions, in ways that are particularly valuable for feminist projects of change and political transformation." — Rachel Jones, author of Irigaray: Towards a Sexuate Philosophy

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsPart I. Why Time?Introduction: Time for ChangeFrench Feminism and the Problem of TimeOn Time and ChangeDecolonial and Queer Critiques of TimeA Note on Language Part II. Revolutionary Time1. Linear Time, Cyclical Time, Revolutionary TimeFrom Beauvoir’s Sexual Division of Temporal Labor to Revolutionary TimeThree Temporal Models, Three Feminist WavesKristeva and Irigaray on Time and DifferenceConclusion2. Alterity and AlterationTime, Change, and Sexuate DifferenceRemaking Immanence and TranscendenceMimesis, Imitation, and Strategic DisplacementConclusion3. Revolutionizing TimeReturning to the Body... and the SoulIntimate Revolt: The Time of PsychoanalysisRe-Membering the Past: Memorial ArtConclusion Part III. The Present4. The Problem of the PresentMetaphysical PresenceMetaphysical AbsenceTo Be Finite Is to Have Been BornConclusion5. Temporalizing the PresentBreathing Life into Presence: The Praxis of Yoga and Pranayama(Re)presenting Becoming: Poetry as a Practice of PresencingTime for Love: Presence as Co-presenceConclusion6. An Ethics of Temporal DifferenceOn the Propriety of Self and OtherBecoming Two: Encountering the Stranger Within(Un)Timely Revolutions: The Timelessness of the UnconsciousConclusion Part IV. The Past7. Returning to the Maternal BodyFeminism and MotherhoodMothers Lost: MatricideOther Mothers: A Colonial Maternal ContinentConclusion8. Motherhood According to KristevaPlato’s Cho¯ra Revisited: Receptacle or Revolutionary?Flesh Flash: On Time and MotherhoodTemporalizing Mat(t)er: On the Interdependence Between Semiotic and SymbolicConclusion9. Motherhood According to IrigarayPlato’s Cave Revisited: An Impossible MetaphorThe Substitution of Origins for BeginningsMother Lost, Time LostConclusion Part V. The FutureA Non-Conclusive Conclusion: New BeginningsSuspended Time, Foreclosed FuturesArendt and the Unpredictability of the FutureNew BeginningsNotesBibliographyIndex