Nancy J. Holland

Much contemporary feminist theory continues to see itself as freeing women from patriarchal oppression so that they may realize their own inner truth. To be told by postmodern thinkers such as Jacques Derrida that the very possibility of such a truth must be submitted to the process of deconstruction thus seems to present a serious challenge to the feminist project. From a postmodern perspective, on the other hand, most feminist discourse remains deeply rooted, if not in essentialism, at least in the logocentrism of traditional philosophical and political thought. Stepping beyond the usual confines of this debate, the eleven thinkers whose ideas are represented in this volume take a deeper look at Derrida's work to consider its specific strengths and weaknesses as a model for feminist theory and practice. Despite this common focal point, this collection is extremely diverse. The problems addressed include the status of the female subject, civil disobedience, and the AIDS epidemic; the subjects include Husserl's theory of signs, jealousy in Shakespeare's _Othello_, and Irigaray's concept of the divine; disciplines include cultural studies, literature, philosophy, political theory, religion, and the law as represented by major scholars in each field; and the opinions expressed range from strong criticism of Derrida's work to careful explorations of the avenues it creates for rethinking sexual difference. Included are an analytic introduction by Nancy J. Holland; important new essays by Elizabeth Grosz, Peggy Kamuf, Peg Birmingham, Kate Mehuron, Ellen Armour, and Dorothea Olkowski; "Choreographies," Derrida's 1982 interview with Christie V. McDonald; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's "Displacement and the Discourse of Women," published in the same year; and recent articles by Drucilla Cornell and Nancy Fraser.

This paper reconsiders Marcuse's Eros and Civilization from the perspective of Gayle Rubin's classic article “The Traffic in Women.” The primary goals of this comparison are to investigate the social and psychological mechanisms that perpetuate the archaic sex/gender system Rubin describes under current conditions of post-industrial capitalism; to open possible new avenues of analysis and liberatory praxis based on these authors’ applications of Marxist insights to cultural interpretations of Freud's writings; and to make clearer the role sexual repression continues to play in all forms of oppression, even in a public world seemingly saturated with sex.

This paper takes a feminist look back at Derrida’s work roughly from “Plato’s Pharmacy” to Politics of Friendship, setting it in the context of three other sets of writings: Plato’s Lysis and Phaedrus; French philosophy in the mid-twentieth century, especially the ethical and political thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beauvoir; and contemporary re-visions of two Greek tragedies, Oedipus and Orestes/Electra. What brings these disparate themes together are Derrida’s thought, the work of Martin Heidegger, and my life in the wake of Derrida’s death.

Taking Jean Giraudoux's play _The Madwoman of Chaillot _as its starting point, this book seeks a way out of the dilemma that confronts those who feel that any nonrelativistic moral theory requires some metaphysical foundation but cannot see how a foundations position can be persuasively defended. Nancy Holland draws on the work of Heidegger and Derrida to formulate a concept of appropriate action that can address both extraordinary ethical problems within a particular cultural tradition and moral conflict between different cultures. Her feminist reappropriations of the concept of the appropriate is then further developed by reference to Aristotle and Kant, whose ethical theories, she argues, are independent of their metaphysics, thus suggesting that moral evaluations can rely on a deep understanding of what it is to be human within a cultural tradition rather than on foundations premises. As an example of the application of her theory, Holland examines the problem of ordaining women women in the Roman Catholic Church and then goes on to compare her approach with that of other philosophers working in virtue theory, postmodern ethics, and feminism. We all want to be able to make valid moral judgments and to respect the ethical values of other cultural groups. By suggesting that a culture's sense of the human and a correlated sense of appropriate action, might provide a purely formal but still critical perspective on any community's current beliefs and practices without invoking any substantive external criteria, the concept of the appropriate is offered as one way in which we can satisfy both our moral wants and our intellectual needs

Martin Heidegger's commitment to the idea that _Dasein_ is ultimately gender neutral, as well as several other major aspects of his thought, raises significant questions for feminist philosophers. The fourteen essays included in this volume clearly illustrate the ways in which feminist readings can deepen our understanding of his philosophy. They illuminate both the richness and the limitations of the resources his work can provide for feminist thought. This volume engages the full scope of Heidegger's writings from_ Being and Time _through his latest work, from his readings of the ancient Greek poets to his critique of modern technology. At the same time, it reflects a wide range of contemporary feminist concerns: the significance of gender difference; the role of the body in philosophical thought; the relationship between philosophy and the natural world, and between philosophy and the domestic realm; and the aspiration to move forward into a new, more just, political world. Included in this volume are important new essays by Ellen Armour, Carol Bigwood, Jack Caputo, Tina Chanter, Trish Glazebrook, Jennifer Gosetti, Luce Irigaray, Dorothy Leland, Mechthild Nagel, Gail Stenstad, and the editors—as well as a valuable historical and theoretical Introduction by Patricia Huntington, the first of Jacques Derrida's "Geschlecht" articles, and an important 1997 essay by Iris Marion Young