Gut Feminism

241 Pages·2015·1.595 MB·English

by  Elizabeth A. Wilson

GUT FEMINISM
NEXT WAVE:
NEW DIRECTIONS IN
WOMEN’S STUDIES
A series edited by Inderpal Grewal,
Caren Kaplan, and Robyn Wiegman
GUT
FEMI
NISM
ELIZABETH A. WILSON
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Durham and London 2015
© 2015 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of
Ame rica on acid- free paper ∞
Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan
Typeset in Quadraat and Gill Sans
by Westchester Publishing Ser vices
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Wilson, Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Ann), [date]
Gut feminism / Elizabeth A. Wilson.
pages cm—( Next wave : new directions in w omen’s studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8223-5951-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8223-5970-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8223-7520-3 (e- book)
1. Feminist theory. 2. Mind and body.
3. Feminism and science. 4. Depression,
Mental. i. Title. ii. Series: Next wave.
hq1190.w548 2015
305.4201— dc23
2015008324
Cover art: elin o’Hara slavick, Global Economy (slaughtered cow near Salvador-
Bahia, Brazil), 1996 (details). Chromogenic print. Courtesy of the artist.
Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges Emory
College of Arts and Sciences and the Laney Gradu ate
School, which provided funds toward the
publication of this book.
CONTENTS
Ack nowl edgm ents vii
Introduction: Depression, Biology,
Aggression 1
PART I. FEMINIST THEORY
CHAPTER 1. Underbelly 21
CHAPTER 2. The Biological
Unconscious 45
CHAPTER 3. Bitter Melancholy 68
PART II. ANTIDEPRESSANTS
CHAPTER 4. Chemical Transference 97
CHAPTER 5. The Bastard Placebo 121
CHAPTER 6. The Pharmakology
of Depression 141
Conclusion 169
Notes 181
References 201
Index 225
This page intentionally left blank
AC KNOW LEDG MENTS
An early version of the second chapter of this book was published in
2004 in the journal differences under the title “Gut Feminism.” In the
short ac know ledg ments at the end of that essay I stated that this was
the final expression of an argument made at greater length in my 2004
book Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body. At the time, if I re-
call correctly, I imagined that the questions of the gut that had emerged
late in the writing of Psychosomatic could be slightly extended, but that
the differences article would bring those issues to a close. That is not
what happened. In 2004 I was at the beginning of a five-y ear fellowship,
funded by the Australian Research Council, on neurology and femi-
nism. That pro ject wasn’t primarily oriented to questions of the gut, but
as things have turned out, the gut and antidepressants have consumed
all my attention. This book is the outcome of that research. The datum
that 95  percent of the h uman body’s serotonin can be found in the gut
(something I first stumbled across while writing Psychosomatic) did not
lose its grip on me. Exploiting these kinds of data, this book contains the
best arguments I can currently muster for using the peripheral body
to think psychologically, and for using depressive states to understand
the necessary aggressions of feminist theory and politics. While femi-
nist questions about biology and hostility will continue to be asked, I
believe that I have now finally brought this par tic u lar, much extended
pro ject to a close.
There are many institutions and colleagues who have sustained me
as I have written. I have been very fortunate to be invited to speak to
a number of informed and animated audiences. Early versions of this
research were presented at the following venues (in response to invita-
tions from these colleagues): the Diane Weiss Memorial Lecture, Wes-
leyan University (Victoria Pitts-Taylor); the Linda Singer Memorial Lec-
ture, Miami University (Gaile Pohlhaus); ucla (Rachel Lee and Hannah
Landecker); Kings College and the London School of Economics (Niko-
las Rose); the University of California, San Diego (Lisa Cartwright and
Steven Epstein); Concordia University (Marcie Frank); Women’s Studies,
Rutgers University (Belinda Edmondson); the Program in Women’s Stud-
ies, Duke University (Ranji Khanna and Robyn Wiegman); the University
of Illinois at Urbana– Champaign (Bruce Rosenstock); the Committee on
Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality, Harvard University
(Anne Fausto- Sterling); the Center for the Humanities, Wesleyan Univer-
sity (Robert Reynolds); the University of New South Wales (Vicki Kirby);
St. Thomas Aquinas College (Charles Shepherdson); the mit Program
in Women’s Studies (Evelyn Fox Keller); the Rock Ethics Institute and the
Science, Medicine and Technology in Culture Program, Penn State Uni-
versity (Susan Squier); the Pembroke Center for Research and Teach-
ing on Women, Brown University (Elizabeth Weed); the Centre for
Women’s Studies and Gender Research, Monash University (Maryanne
Dever; JaneMaree Maher; Steven Angelides); the Department of Gender
Studies, University of Sydney (Elspeth Probyn); the Australian Women’s
Studies Association; the Society for Lit erature and Science and the Arts.
This book was begun with the support of an Australian Research
Council Fellowship (2004–2008) at the University of Sydney (Research
Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences) and the University of
New South Wales (School of En glish, Media and Performing Arts). The
Australian Research Council has been an enormously im por tant source
of funding for me, and I remain very grateful for their support of inter-
disciplinary work that no doubt made them anxious. The pro ject was
also supported by a fellowship year at the Radcliffe Institute for Ad-
vanced Study, Harvard University (2011–2012), which provided me with
remarkable resources and great intellectual com pany.
Some of the following chapters have been published in the early
stages of this research; these essays have all been revised for this book.
Chapter 1 appeared, in different form, as “Underbelly” in differences: A
Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 21, no. 1 (2010): 194–208. Chapter 2 was
published, in different form, under the title “Gut feminism” in differ-
ences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 15, no. 3 (2004): 66–94. Frag-
viii AC KNOW LEDG MENTS
ments from “The work of antidepressants: Preliminary notes on how
to build an alliance between feminism and psychopharmacology”
(BioSocieties: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Studies of Life Sciences 1
[2006], 125–131) and “Organic empathy: Feminism, psychopharmaceu-
ticals and the embodiment of depression” (in Stacy Alaimo and Susan
Hekman’s Material Feminisms [Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2009], 373–399) can be found scattered through chapter 4 and beyond.
An earlier version of chapter 5 was published, in different form, with
the title “Ingesting placebo” in Australian Feminist Studies 23 (2008): 31–42.
Chapter 6 was published, in different form, as “Neurological entangle-
ments: The case of pediatric depression, ssris and suicidal ideation” in
Subjectivity 4, no. 3 (2011): 277–297.
I have the very best of colleagues in the Department of Women’s,
Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University. My deepest thanks
to two exemplary chairs (Lynne Huffer and Pamela Scully) who pro-
vided the conditions for this research to proceed, to a crack team of staff
(Berky Abreu, April Biagioni, Linda Calloway, and Chelsea Long), and
to my departmental colleagues Rizvana Bradley, Irene Browne, Michael
Moon, Beth Reingold, Deboleena Roy, Holloway Sparks, and Rosema-
rie Garland Thomson. Special thanks to Carla Freeman, who provided
excellent com pany and choco late-b ased encouragement through a long
summer when neither of us thought our books would ever be finished.
Ingrid Meintjes helped with the dreary editing tasks right at the very end
and was a lifesaver.
Over the many years of this book’s formation my thinking has
continued to grow in the com pany of great friends, supporters, and
coconspirators: Steven Angelides, Karen Barad, Tyler Curtain, Guy
Davidson, Penelope Deutscher, Richard Doyle, Anne Fausto- Sterling,
Mike Fortun, Kim Fortun, Adam Frank, Jonathan Goldberg, Lynne
Huffer, Annamarie Jagose, Lynne Joyrich, Helen Keane, Vicki Kirby, Neil
Levi, Kate Livett, Elizabeth McMahon, Michael Moon, Brigitta Olubas,
Isobel Pegrum, Marguerite Pigeon, Robert Reynolds, Jennifer Rutherford,
Vanessa Smith, Colin Talley, Nicole Vitellone, and Elizabeth Weed. I
would particularly like to note the importance of the Mrs. Klein read-
ing group that met over many years in Sydney. My thanks to Sue Best,
Gillian Straker, and kylie valentine not just for their incisive thinking
and great humor but also for understanding that cake is necessary
for sustained discussions of the Kleinian underworld. Robyn Wiegman
AC KNOW LEDG MENTS ix