On spiders, cyborgs, and being scared : the feminine and the sublime / Joanna Zylinska.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zylinska, Joanna, 1971-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sublime, The.

Feminist theory.

Physical Description:

viii, 182 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2001.

Summary:

This innovative book explores one of the most important concepts in contemporary cultural debates: the sublime. Joanna Zylinska looks at the consequences of feminism and its rethinking of sexual differences, and how it has led to the sublime tradition. She argues that what is generally considered aesthetics can now be more productive thought of in terms of ethics instead. Looking at a range of diverse discourses -- Orlan's carnal art, philosophies of the everyday, the French feminism of Cixous and Irigaray, and the gender theory of Judith Butler -- Zylinska intertwines the boundaries of cultural theory and textual practice to produce an ethics of the feminine sublime.

Contents:

Introduction: 'a point of view' 1

Why the sublime? 1

The feminine and the sublime 3

Desperately seeking novelty 5

On the brink of feminism and deconstruction 6

Unweaving the spider's web, or, a summary of chapters 7

1 Decriture feminine: the discourse of the feminine sublime 12

Preambles 12

Woman does not believe in truth 13

The vertigo of deconstruction 15

Men on sublimity 17

Peter de Bolla's sublime vortex 25

Sublime overflow 28

The feminine sublime 30

Revisiting ecriture feminine 32

Decriture feminine: an ethical proposal 36

Webwords: what's sublime about spiders? 49

2 Between aesthetics and ethics 68

'Ethics and aesthetics are one'? 68

Respect for radical alterity 70

The 'feminine' of sexual difference 74

The ethics of the feminine sublime 76

After the subject 83

The economy of the gift 88

This economy which is not one 92

In praise of moderation 95

Love as a hyperbole of friendship 97

'Love, if there is such a thing, if there were such a thing' 104

Eros Pteros: blinded by love 107

Love as a problem of sight 109

Feminism beyond the gaze 111

Choosing blindness 115

Webwords: from the spider's web to cyberspace 127

3 Micro-spaces of the everyday: 'the [feminine] sublime is here and now' 151

Minimal perspective 151

Wittgenstein's philosophy of ordinary language 154

The sublime and the uncanny 160

Metropolitan encounters 162

Ethics in the cybercity 164

Love is in the air ... 170.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0719058236

0719058244

OCLC:

48013488