Feminist interpretations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau / edited by Lynda Lange.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lange, Lynda, 1943-

Series:

Re-reading the canon

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques.

Feminist theory.

Physical Description:

xi, 409 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pa. : Pennsylvania State University Press, [2002]

Summary:

A progenitor of modern egalitarianism, communitarianism, and participatory democracy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a philosopher whose deep concern with the relationship between the domains of private/domestic and public/political life has made him especially interesting to feminist theorists, but also has made him very controversial. The essays in this volume, representing a wide range of feminist interpretations of Rousseau, explore the many tensions in his thought that arise from his unique combination of radical and traditional perspectives on gender relations and the state.

Among the topics addressed by the contributors are: the connections between Rousseau's political vision of the egalitarian state and his view of the "natural" role of women in the family; Rousseau's apparent fear of the actual danger and power of women; important questions Rousseau raised about child care and gender relations in individualist societies that feminists should address; the founding of republics; the nature of consent; the meaning of citizenship; and the conflation of modern universal ideals of democratic citizenship with modern masculinity, leading to the suggestion that the latter is as fragile a construction as the former.

Overall this volume makes an important contribution to a core question at the hinge of modernism and postmodernism: how modern, egalitarian notions of social contract, premised on universality and objective reason, can yet result in systematic exclusion of social groups, including women.

Contents:

1 Rousseau and Modern Feminism / Lynda Lange 24

2 Rousseau's Political Defense of the Sex-Roled Family / Penny Weiss, Anne Harper 42

3 Rousseau on Civic Virtue, Male Autonomy, and the Construction of the Divided Female / Leah Bradshaw 65

4 The Fate of Rousseau's Heroines / Susan Moller Okin 89

5 Women, Power, and the Politics of Everyday Life / Mira Morgenstern 113

6 Developing a Feminist Concept of the Citizen: Rousseauian Insights on Nature and Reason / Alice Ormiston 144

7 Empowerment Inside Patriarchy: Rousseau and the Masculine Construction of Femininity / Else Wiestad 169

8 The Politics of "Feminine Concealment" and "Masculine Openness" in Rousseau / Ingrid Makus 187

9 Rousseau and the Politics of Care / Melissa A. Butler 212

10 Rousseau's Phallocratic Ends / Sarah Kofman, Translated by Mara Dukats 229

11 Rousseau's Subversive Women / Lori J. Marso 245

12 "Une Maitresse Imperieuse": Woman in Rousseau's Semiotic Republic / Linda Zerilli 277

13 Republican Romance / Elizabeth Wingrove 315

14 The Coupling of Human Souls: Rousseau and the Problem of Gender Relations / Rebecca Kukla 346

15 On the Social Contract / Monique Wittig 383.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [393]-396) and index.

ISBN:

0271022000

0271022019

OCLC:

49011262