What do you think?
Rate this book
Changing Difference: The Question of the Feminine in Philosophy
In the post-feminist age the fact that ‘woman’ finds herself deprived of her ‘essence’ only confirms, paradoxically, a very ancient state of affairs: ‘woman’ has never been able to define herself any other way than in terms of the violence done to her. Violence alone confers her being—whether it is domestic and social violence or theoretical violence. The critique of ‘essentialism’ (i.e. there is no specifically feminine essence) proposed by both gender theory and deconstruction is just one more twist in the ontological negation of the feminine.
Contrary to all expectations, however, this ever more radical hollowing out of woman within intellectual movements supposed to protect her, this assimilation of woman to a ‘being nothing’, clears the way for a new beginning. Let us now assume the thought of ‘woman’ as an empty but resistant essence, an essence that is resistant precisely because it is empty, a resistance that strikes down the impossibility of its own disappearance once and for all. To ask what remains of woman after the sacrifice of her being is to signal a new era in the feminist struggle, changing the terms of the battle to go beyond both essentialism and anti-essentialism.
In this groundbreaking work Catherine Malabou begins with philosophy, asking: what is the life of a woman philosopher?
Contrary to all expectations, however, this ever more radical hollowing out of woman within intellectual movements supposed to protect her, this assimilation of woman to a ‘being nothing’, clears the way for a new beginning. Let us now assume the thought of ‘woman’ as an empty but resistant essence, an essence that is resistant precisely because it is empty, a resistance that strikes down the impossibility of its own disappearance once and for all. To ask what remains of woman after the sacrifice of her being is to signal a new era in the feminist struggle, changing the terms of the battle to go beyond both essentialism and anti-essentialism.
In this groundbreaking work Catherine Malabou begins with philosophy, asking: what is the life of a woman philosopher?
- GenresFeminismPhilosophyGender
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
6 people are currently reading
182 people want to read
About the author
Catherine Malabou
60 books121 followersCatherine Malabou (b. 1959) is a French philosopher. She is a professor of philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS and professor of modern European philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University, London. She is known for her work on plasticity, a concept she culled from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, which has proved fertile within contemporary economic, political, and social discourses. Widely regarded as one of the most exciting figures in what has been called “The New French Philosophy,” Malabou’s research and writing covers a range of figures and issues, including the work of Hegel, Freud, Heidegger, and Derrida; the relationship between philosophy, neuroscience, and psychoanalysis; and concepts of essence and difference within feminism.
Born in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria, Catherine Malabou began her advanced studies at the Université Paris-Sorbonne before attending the prestigious École normale supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud, where, in 1994, she submitted her dissertation on G.W.F. Hegel under the direction of Jacques Derrida. Her thesis was published in 1996 under the title L’avenir de Hegel: Plasticité, temporalité, dialectique (The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality and Dialectic, 2005) with a long preface by Derrida, whom she would later co-author La Contre-allée (1999; Counterpath, 2004). Before arriving at Kingston University, Malabou became assistant professor at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre in 1995 and, as a frequent lecturer in the USA, has taught at UC Berkeley, The New School in New York City, New York State University at Buffalo, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and, most recently, UC Irvine.
Catherine Malabou’s philosophical work forges new connections and intellectual networks that imaginatively leap across existing synaptic gaps between, for example, continental philosophy and neuroscience; the philosophy of neuroscience and the critique of capitalism; neuroscience and psychoanalysis; and continental and analytic philosophy (notably Kant). As well, her work is explosive and iconoclastic, shattering perceived understandings of Hegel, feminism and gender, and the implications of post-structuralism.
Starting with her 2004 book, Que faire de notre cerveau? (What Should We Do With Our Brain?, 2009), Catherine Malabou has argued passionately and provocatively for a connection between continental philosophy and empirical neuroscience. She centers her argument on a highly original interpretation of the concept of plasticity, an interpretation that she first uncovered in her reading of Hegel’s dialectic. Plasticity refers to the capacity both to receive form and to give form. Although the concept of plasticity is central to neuroscience, Malabou’s work shows that neuroscientists and lay people often misunderstand the basic plasticity of the brain, succumbing to an ideology that focuses solely on its capacity to receive form, that is, the capacity of the brain to be shaped in and through its experience of the world to the exclusion of its creative, form-giving power. In other words, the reigning ideology that governs both the neuroscientific community and the broader culture substitutes flexibility for plasticity, and flexibility, Malabou warns us, “is plasticity minus its genius.” The emphasis on flexibility also fits all too neatly with the demands of capitalism under neoliberalism, which demands efficiency, flexibility, adaptability and versatility as conditions of employability in a post-Fordist economy. The creative, form-giving power of the brain—its genius—consists in its explosive capacity, a capacity that unleashes new possibilities, and herein also lies the capacity for resistance. In her conclusion, Catherine Malabou writes: “To ask ‘What should we do with our brain?’ is above all to visualize the possibility of saying no to an afflicting economic, political, and mediatic culture that celebrate
Born in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria, Catherine Malabou began her advanced studies at the Université Paris-Sorbonne before attending the prestigious École normale supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud, where, in 1994, she submitted her dissertation on G.W.F. Hegel under the direction of Jacques Derrida. Her thesis was published in 1996 under the title L’avenir de Hegel: Plasticité, temporalité, dialectique (The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality and Dialectic, 2005) with a long preface by Derrida, whom she would later co-author La Contre-allée (1999; Counterpath, 2004). Before arriving at Kingston University, Malabou became assistant professor at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre in 1995 and, as a frequent lecturer in the USA, has taught at UC Berkeley, The New School in New York City, New York State University at Buffalo, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and, most recently, UC Irvine.
Catherine Malabou’s philosophical work forges new connections and intellectual networks that imaginatively leap across existing synaptic gaps between, for example, continental philosophy and neuroscience; the philosophy of neuroscience and the critique of capitalism; neuroscience and psychoanalysis; and continental and analytic philosophy (notably Kant). As well, her work is explosive and iconoclastic, shattering perceived understandings of Hegel, feminism and gender, and the implications of post-structuralism.
Starting with her 2004 book, Que faire de notre cerveau? (What Should We Do With Our Brain?, 2009), Catherine Malabou has argued passionately and provocatively for a connection between continental philosophy and empirical neuroscience. She centers her argument on a highly original interpretation of the concept of plasticity, an interpretation that she first uncovered in her reading of Hegel’s dialectic. Plasticity refers to the capacity both to receive form and to give form. Although the concept of plasticity is central to neuroscience, Malabou’s work shows that neuroscientists and lay people often misunderstand the basic plasticity of the brain, succumbing to an ideology that focuses solely on its capacity to receive form, that is, the capacity of the brain to be shaped in and through its experience of the world to the exclusion of its creative, form-giving power. In other words, the reigning ideology that governs both the neuroscientific community and the broader culture substitutes flexibility for plasticity, and flexibility, Malabou warns us, “is plasticity minus its genius.” The emphasis on flexibility also fits all too neatly with the demands of capitalism under neoliberalism, which demands efficiency, flexibility, adaptability and versatility as conditions of employability in a post-Fordist economy. The creative, form-giving power of the brain—its genius—consists in its explosive capacity, a capacity that unleashes new possibilities, and herein also lies the capacity for resistance. In her conclusion, Catherine Malabou writes: “To ask ‘What should we do with our brain?’ is above all to visualize the possibility of saying no to an afflicting economic, political, and mediatic culture that celebrate
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 16, 2016
"if I'm a philosopher it is at the price of a tremendous violence, the violence that philosophy constantly does to me and the violence I inflict on it in return"
Wow. I will frontload what must be said about this work: it is essential and it is electric. Nowhere else can one find the strains of thought explored by Malabou with such rigour and inventiveness. Malabou demonstrates how questions of gender are at the core of philosophy and language (or, what Derrida and Malabou would call 'writing,' housing language in a more expansive and comfortable space). At the same time, there is no sacrifice of specificity and a keen awareness of the emotional stakes of the argument. Malabou opens herself up for autobiographical confessions that incalculably enhance the force of her argument.
As is to be expected of Malabou, what is distinctive about her style is the way in which her argument is made in terms of tracing her precise train of thought. Questions are resolved and then contradicted, oppositions are anticipated, and the end of her texts generally deserve the mystical significance we confer to such a space.
There are certainly some questions that need to be raised about Malabou's final conclusions as the notion of gender binarism explodes completely. But, certainly she is right about one crucial aspect: to deconstruct an identity of a given group that has never had any ownership over said identity is an atrocious violence. That assumption and her affective experience of that reality drive Malabou's fascinating and masterful text.
Wow. I will frontload what must be said about this work: it is essential and it is electric. Nowhere else can one find the strains of thought explored by Malabou with such rigour and inventiveness. Malabou demonstrates how questions of gender are at the core of philosophy and language (or, what Derrida and Malabou would call 'writing,' housing language in a more expansive and comfortable space). At the same time, there is no sacrifice of specificity and a keen awareness of the emotional stakes of the argument. Malabou opens herself up for autobiographical confessions that incalculably enhance the force of her argument.
As is to be expected of Malabou, what is distinctive about her style is the way in which her argument is made in terms of tracing her precise train of thought. Questions are resolved and then contradicted, oppositions are anticipated, and the end of her texts generally deserve the mystical significance we confer to such a space.
There are certainly some questions that need to be raised about Malabou's final conclusions as the notion of gender binarism explodes completely. But, certainly she is right about one crucial aspect: to deconstruct an identity of a given group that has never had any ownership over said identity is an atrocious violence. That assumption and her affective experience of that reality drive Malabou's fascinating and masterful text.
October 22, 2024
li so os dois primeiros capitulos por enquanto
April 10, 2022
loved it!
It's a call against "anti-essentialist and deconstructive violence" which "empty woman of herself", and "disembowel her". And suggests a plastic essence, a fluidity of being (as the "other of the matter/form relation") where "the feminine or woman.. become passing, metabolic points of identity, which like others show the passing inscribed at the heart of gender".
It's a perfect fit for Derrida lovers, ofcrs, but also Irigaray lovers. Yet, you cannot find much in-depth elaborated concept in this book, it's rather an overview to be more discussed and elaborated in her other books.
It's a call against "anti-essentialist and deconstructive violence" which "empty woman of herself", and "disembowel her". And suggests a plastic essence, a fluidity of being (as the "other of the matter/form relation") where "the feminine or woman.. become passing, metabolic points of identity, which like others show the passing inscribed at the heart of gender".
It's a perfect fit for Derrida lovers, ofcrs, but also Irigaray lovers. Yet, you cannot find much in-depth elaborated concept in this book, it's rather an overview to be more discussed and elaborated in her other books.
November 19, 2023
definitely will have to reread to get a better understanding, but a very powerful book
April 16, 2016
may productive dalliances with derrida -- notorious sa kanyang post-struc ek eks, although na-strengthen pa sa librong ito ang dati nang suspicion na mas kadiri pa sa post-struc ni derrida ang pomo ng tulad ng kanila baudrillard, virilio o fukuyama -- na mentor ata ni ate catherine. bumalik ba sya uli sa "women's liberation" sa dulo? nagtapos syang may question mark din. sakto: for we need to ask, what is the basis of such liberation? on what values is it founder? ano ang tanaw?
silently best part ata ang phoenix, spider, salamander imaging, corresponding sa "dialectical-metaphysical," "deconstructive" at "post-deconstructive" strands of thought. Si Hegel ito, sila Derrida at... si Marx na buhay na buhay na buhay kanila Althusser, Zizek, Guillermo, Ebert at marami pa.
silently best part ata ang phoenix, spider, salamander imaging, corresponding sa "dialectical-metaphysical," "deconstructive" at "post-deconstructive" strands of thought. Si Hegel ito, sila Derrida at... si Marx na buhay na buhay na buhay kanila Althusser, Zizek, Guillermo, Ebert at marami pa.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews