Irigaray and Deleuze: Experiments in Visceral Philosophy

290 Pages·1999·23.086 MB·English

by  Tamsin Lorraine

lriaaray and Deleuze

lrigaru
& Deleuze
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Visceral
Philosophy
Ta01sin lorraine
Cornell University Press
Ithaca and London
Copyright© 1999 Library of Congress
by Cornell University Cataloging-in-Publication Data
All rights reserved. Lorraine, Tamsin E.
Except for brief quotations in a Irigaray and Deleuze : experiments in
review, this book, or parts thereof, visceral philosophy I Ta~nsin Lorraine.
must not be reproduced in any form p. em.
without pennission in writing from Includes bibliographical references
the publisher. (p. ) and index.
For information, address ISBN o-8014-3623-o (cl.: alk. paper)
Cornell University Press, ISBN o-8014-8586-X (pa.: alk. paper).
Sage House, 1. Irigaray, Luce. 2. Deleuze,
512 East State Street, Gilles. 3· Body, Human (Philosophy).
Ithaca, New York 1485o. 4-Feminist theory. I. Title.
First published 1999 by B243o.l7~67 1999 99-18218
Cornell University Press 194-dc21
First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1999
Printed in the United States of America
Cornell University Press strives to
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Contents
Preface, xi
Abbreviations, xiii
Introduction,
I
Body Talk, I
Heidegger and the Body, 8
Conceptual Thought and Corporeal Logics, I 2
lrigaray's Project,
I 20
Irigaray and the Constitution of the Subject, 23
Symbolic Support for Feminine Subjectivity, 33
Irigaray's Reading of Philosophy, 43
lrigaray's Nietzsche, 49
2
Mimicry and the Feminine Other, 49
A New Way of Thinking: An Elemental Logic, 54
Christian Flesh, 57
Irigaray's Critique of the Eternal Return, 6o
Sexual Difference and Reading Nietzsche, 64
3 lrigaray's Sensible Transcendental, 67
Living Mirrors and Corporeal Logic, 67
Angelic Passages and the Feminine Divine, 84
Horizon of Gender, 87
4 Shattering Mirrors, go
Mirrors, Rights, and Cultural Change, go
Feminine Language and lntersubjective Communication, IOJ
5 De leuze's Project, I I o
Deleuze and Guattari and the Constitution of the Subject, I I7
Writing as Becoming-Imperceptible, I24
Deleuze's Reading of Philosophy, IJ7
6 Deleuze's Nietzsche, I42
Speaking in One's Own Name, I42
Active/Reactive Forces and Will to Power, I46
Deleuze's Reading of the Eternal Return, I 55
Reading Nietzsche and Sexual Difference, I6o
7 Deleuze's Becoming-Imperceptible, I65
Constructing the Body without Organs, I 67
Kafka and Becoming-Minoritarian, I74
Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Woman, I 8 I
Becoming-Imperceptible, I 8 8
vi C1ntents
8 Mapping Lines ofF light,
192
Foucauldian Cartography, 192
Diagrams and Resistance, 201
9 Corporeal Cartographies,
218
Representing Origins and Becoming-Intrauterine, 221
Critique of Representation and the Masculine Subject, 228
Shattering Mirrors and Mapping Lines of Flight, 235
Notes,
241
Bibliography, 55
2
Index, 267
l:antents vii

Preface
In his book Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradif5!1Z Felix Guat
tari claims that different societies offer different possibilities in the forma
tion and maintenance of interdependent human selves, that these possibil
ities change over time, and that we need models for the processes of
self-making that will facilitate the reappropriation of these processes by
social subjects. Guattari is careful to distinguish his own characterizations
of psychic processes from scientific theories. Rather than reflect what
must be the case about human existence, his cartographies and psycholog
ical models are meant to coexist with the day-to-day processes of individu
als and collectives that are actively engaged in the project of living lives as
human beings. What he claims matters in his own modeling of subjectivity
is whether or not his characterizations effectively make possible an "au
topoiesis" of the means of production of subjectivity. That is, Guattari
creates cartographies of the social processes involved in the making of
selves in order to foster subjectivities that break free from hegemonic
forms and enable individuals and collectives to own creatively their own
identities along with the processes that support them. It is to this kind of
project that I hope to contribute. In the pages to come I explore the work
of Luce Irigaray and of Gilles Deleuze, often in tandem with his collabo
rative work with Guattari, in order to suggest a model of subjectivity that
could help to provide practical answers to the problem of how we could
and should live in the world and with others.
In keeping with the poststructuralist tradition in French philosophy
from which this work is largely drawn, I assume that human selves are nei
ther substances with determinate properties nor egoic structures that ac
crue personal histories in a predictably orderly way. Instead, I assume that
the selves we experience as our own are the product of a historically con
ditioned process involving both corporeal and psychic aspects of existence,
that this process needs to be instituted and continually reiterated in a so
cial context in order to give birth to and maintain the subject at the corpo
real level of embodiment as well as the psychic level of self, and that lan
guage and social positioning within a larger social field play a crucial role
in this process. In taking up a position in the social field as a speaker of lan
guage, a human being takes up a perspective from which to develop a nar-