Dorothea Olkowski - Böcker

The western philosophical tradition has only recently explored alterity, in particular the alterity of woman as the other of man. This volume reflects on the ethical implications of this, and on the need for a rethinking of the implicit structures of Western philosophy, which exclude women as subjects who conceptualize the world and society.

More than sixty years ago, Simone de Beauvoir identified the importance of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s writings to feminist theory. His exploration of the relationship between the body and the space it inhabits is key to modern phenomenological thinking. But there has been little agreement on how Merleau-Ponty’s ideas ultimately have an impact on feminist philosophy. Does his emphasis on physical subjectivity lend a certain agency to all bodies, regardless of sex? Or do Merleau-Ponty’s specific descriptions of physical experience betray an intrinsic bias toward a male heterosexual point of view? The essays presented here by Olkowski and Weiss attempt to situate Merleau-Ponty in the larger context of feminist theory, while impartially evaluating his contributions, both positive and negative, to that theory.In addition to the editors, the contributors are Jorella Andrews, David Brubaker, Judith Butler, Laura Doyle, Helen Fielding, Vicki Kirby, Sonia Kruks, Ann Murphy, Johanna Oksala, and Beata Stawarska.

More than sixty years ago, Simone de Beauvoir identified the importance of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s writings to feminist theory. His exploration of the relationship between the body and the space it inhabits is key to modern phenomenological thinking. But there has been little agreement on how Merleau-Ponty’s ideas ultimately have an impact on feminist philosophy. Does his emphasis on physical subjectivity lend a certain agency to all bodies, regardless of sex? Or do Merleau-Ponty’s specific descriptions of physical experience betray an intrinsic bias toward a male heterosexual point of view? The essays presented here by Olkowski and Weiss attempt to situate Merleau-Ponty in the larger context of feminist theory, while impartially evaluating his contributions, both positive and negative, to that theory.In addition to the editors, the contributors are Jorella Andrews, David Brubaker, Judith Butler, Laura Doyle, Helen Fielding, Vicki Kirby, Sonia Kruks, Ann Murphy, Johanna Oksala, and Beata Stawarska.

This volume addresses the issue of freedom in the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. This is all the more challenging in that Deleuze-Guattari almost never use the term freedom, preferring instead, the concept of the refrain. The essays collected in the volume show that freedom has been understood in a remarkably narrow sense and that in fact freedom operates as the refrain in every realm of thought and creation. The motivating approach in these essays is Deleuze-Guattari’s emphasis on the irreality of media and capitalistic sign regimes, which they perceive to have taken over even the practices of philosophy, the arts, and science. By offering a clear and engaging treatment of the underexplored issue of freedom, this volume moves the discussion of Deleuze-Guattari’s philosophy forward in ways that will appeal to researchers in Continental philosophy and a wide range of other disciplines.

Dorothea Olkowski's exploration of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze clarifies the gifted French thinker's writings for specialists and nonspecialists alike. Deleuze, she says, accomplished the "ruin of representation," the complete overthrow of hierarchic, organic thought in philosophy, politics, aesthetics, and ethics, as well as in society at large. In Deleuze's philosophy of difference, she discovers the source of a new ontology of change, which in turn opens up the creation of new modes of life and thought, not only in philosophy and feminism but wherever creation is at stake. The work of contemporary artist Mary Kelly has been central to Olkowski's thinking. In Kelly she finds an artist at work whose creative acts are in themselves the ruin of representation as a whole, and the text is illustrated with Kelly's art. This original and provocative account of Deleuze contributes significantly to a critical feminist politics and philosophy, as well as to an understanding of feminist art.

The Universal (In the realm of the sensible): Beyond Continental Philosophy proposes a radical, new philosophical system that moves from ontology to ethics. Dorothea Olkowski develops the concept of an ontological unconscious, a connection arising from our sensible relation to the world that conditions encounters with the environment and with others. This fundamental ontology rethinks the space-time relations opened by Irigaray’s notion of the ‘interval,’ Bergson’s ‘recollection,’ Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the ‘flesh’ and Deleuze’s ‘plane of immanence’. Writing in an original style, inspired by literature and the arts, Olkowski locates a ‘realm of the senses’, a field of vulnerability, felt as pleasures and pains. This presents an aesthetic sense of something universal to all human kind, as well as to the organic and inorganic world. In addition to this proposal for a wider ontology, the relation between traditional ontologies and politics is examined as a means of opening politics beyond a no exit or limit cycle. Instead a multiplicity of self-organized, emergent perspectives emerges, eliminating the need for the connections, conjunctions, and disjunctions of the Kantian paradigm at work in contemporary continental philosophy.This is a timely, controversial and important book that will contribute enormously to the study of Deleuze and Continental Philosophy.

Explores Merleau-Ponty's approach of taking the phenomenon of the body out of the dualistic constraints of interior and exterior, and the consequences thereof.This book demonstrates how Merleau-Ponty's understanding of the continuity of inner and psychological life (interiority) and the material world (exteriority) has broad implications for philosophy, the physical and human sciences, and health studies. By taking the phenomenon of the body out of the dualistic constraints of interior and exterior, idealism and empiricism, Merleau-Ponty shows us the possibility of a fresh vantage point for future research and therapeutic application, linking philosophy more closely to the study of nature, the psyche, and social phenomena. Merleau-Ponty, Interiority and Exteriority, Psychic Life and the World is proof of the power and creative energy of Merleau-Ponty's thought.Contributors include Edward S. Casey; Helen A. Fielding; Elizabeth Grosz; Lawrence Hass; Galen A. Johnson; Nobuo Kazashi; Alphonso Lingis; Glen A. Mazis; James Morley; Dorothea Olkowski; David E. Pettigrew; James Phillips; Michael B. Smith; Gail Weiss; and Wilhelm S. Wurtzer.

Explores Merleau-Ponty's approach of taking the phenomenon of the body out of the dualistic constraints of interior and exterior, and the consequences thereof.This book demonstrates how Merleau-Ponty's understanding of the continuity of inner and psychological life (interiority) and the material world (exteriority) has broad implications for philosophy, the physical and human sciences, and health studies. By taking the phenomenon of the body out of the dualistic constraints of interior and exterior, idealism and empiricism, Merleau-Ponty shows us the possibility of a fresh vantage point for future research and therapeutic application, linking philosophy more closely to the study of nature, the psyche, and social phenomena. Merleau-Ponty, Interiority and Exteriority, Psychic Life and the World is proof of the power and creative energy of Merleau-Ponty's thought.Contributors include Edward S. Casey; Helen A. Fielding; Elizabeth Grosz; Lawrence Hass; Galen A. Johnson; Nobuo Kazashi; Alphonso Lingis; Glen A. Mazis; James Morley; Dorothea Olkowski; David E. Pettigrew; James Phillips; Michael B. Smith; Gail Weiss; and Wilhelm S. Wurtzer.

Thirteen women at the forefront of philosophy locate new feminist points of view within the discipline by rigorously engaging works of contemporary French philosophy. In so doing, they both transform the standard practices of the field and carve out new territory. These writers amplify the work of feminist philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, and Sarah Kofman in ways that are both stylistically and substantively creative. They also appropriate for radical feminist use the works of male philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre.The essays illustrate the manner in which feminist philosophers bypass traditional methodology in favor of a disciplinary freedom characterized by fluid methodologies—best exemplified in Beauvoir's work—and by the employment of imaginative forms, including the autobiographical and the poetic. The modes of inquiry used here range variously from psychoanalysis and existentialism to deconstruction, post-structuralism, and newly resurgent phenomenology. This volume also contains a comprehensive bibliography of feminist thinkers who are enacting French philosophy in English, German, and French.

Thirteen women at the forefront of philosophy locate new feminist points of view within the discipline by rigorously engaging works of contemporary French philosophy. In so doing, they both transform the standard practices of the field and carve out new territory. These writers amplify the work of feminist philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, and Sarah Kofman in ways that are both stylistically and substantively creative. They also appropriate for radical feminist use the works of male philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre.The essays illustrate the manner in which feminist philosophers bypass traditional methodology in favor of a disciplinary freedom characterized by fluid methodologies—best exemplified in Beauvoir's work—and by the employment of imaginative forms, including the autobiographical and the poetic. The modes of inquiry used here range variously from psychoanalysis and existentialism to deconstruction, post-structuralism, and newly resurgent phenomenology. This volume also contains a comprehensive bibliography of feminist thinkers who are enacting French philosophy in English, German, and French.

This volume addresses the issue of freedom in the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. This is all the more challenging in that Deleuze-Guattari almost never use the term freedom, preferring instead, the concept of the refrain. The essays collected in the volume show that freedom has been understood in a remarkably narrow sense and that in fact freedom operates as the refrain in every realm of thought and creation. The motivating approach in these essays is Deleuze-Guattari’s emphasis on the irreality of media and capitalistic sign regimes, which they perceive to have taken over even the practices of philosophy, the arts, and science. By offering a clear and engaging treatment of the underexplored issue of freedom, this volume moves the discussion of Deleuze-Guattari’s philosophy forward in ways that will appeal to researchers in Continental philosophy and a wide range of other disciplines.

This collection, first published in 1994, contains thirteen critical essays by established scholars from the fields of philosophy, literary criticism, feminist theory, politics, and sociology, and a new essay by Deleuze himself. That the contributors are from a variety of fields indicates the extent to which Deleuze’s work can and will impact theory far beyond the discipline of philosophy.

This collection, first published in 1994, contains thirteen critical essays by established scholars from the fields of philosophy, literary criticism, feminist theory, politics, and sociology, and a new essay by Deleuze himself. That the contributors are from a variety of fields indicates the extent to which Deleuze’s work can and will impact theory far beyond the discipline of philosophy.