Subjectivity Without Subjects: From Abject Fathers to Desiring Mothers

by Kelly Oliver SUNY, Stony Brook

Overview

What do the Promise Keeper's Movement and the Million Man March reveal about our notions of masculinity and paternal responsibility? What can such films as Varda's Vagabond and Bergman's Persona tell us about contemporary notions of masculinity and femininity? In this provocative new book, well-known feminist and philosopher Kelly Oliver examines the dynamics of identity to develop a new theory which challenges traditional notions of paternity and maternity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780847692538
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/24/1998
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 5.80(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Kelly Oliver is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Family Values: Subjects Between Nature and Culture (1997) and Womanizing Nietzsche: Philosophy's Relation to "the Feminine"(1995).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2 Part I: Abject Fathers Chapter 3 The Morality of American Manhood, Responsibility and Virility Chapter 4 Fatherhood and the Promise of Ethics Chapter 5 Abjection in Fassbinder's Dispair and Polanski's The Tenant Part 6 Part II: Desiring Mother Chapter 7 Kristeva's Imaginary Father as a Screen for the Desiring Mother Chapter 8 Recognition, Witnessing, and Identity: Drucilla Cornell on Family Law Chapter 9 Face to Face With the Mother: Alterity in Bergman's Persona Part 10 Part III: Subjectivity Without Subjects Chapter 11 Fractal Politics: How to Use the Subject Chapter 12 Between Soma and Psyche: Kristeva and the Crisis in Meaning Chapter 13 Subjectivity Without Subjects: Circulation from Vision to Visions Chapter 14 Beyond Recognition: Witnessing the Other Otherwise in Varda's Vagabond Chapter 15 Notes Chapter 16 Bibliography Chapter 17 Index

Editorial Reviews

Oliver reaches beyond the limits of professional philosophy without impairing her ability to be theoretically sophisticated.

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy

Subjectivity without Subjects takes on the much-needed project of theorizing identity and subjectivity as loving openness to difference. Oliver argues that theories of witnessing can overcome the limitations of a Hegelian notion of recognition by acknowledging when recognition is impossible. Her account of a subject as an open system provides a response to contemporary debates about responsibility and agency that avoids the trap of conceiving subjects as either completely active or passive. Oliver's reading of such events as the Million Man March and various films provide practical applications of the theoretical points she makes, rendering this book wonderfully accessible to the student and layperson as well as refreshingly concrete.

Tamsin Lorraine

In her brilliant new book, Kelly Oliver shows us why feminists were so right to insist that the personal is political. Oliver provides us with a convincing argument that our basic ideas of mothers and fathers have left us in a world of subjectivity without subjects. Only by confronting the heart of the matter of personal life can we develop an approach to a feminist politics of liberation that might lead all of us to be significantly less discontented.

Drucilla Cornell

Oliver reaches beyond the limits of professional philosophy without impairing her ability to be theoretically sophisticated.

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy

Oliver reaches beyond the limits of professional philosophy without impairing her ability to be theoretically sophisticated.

Hypatia

Ten essays by feminist theorist Oliver (Philosophy, U. of Texas). Attempting, in the wake of postmodern thinkers such as Foucault and Derrida, to find a ground for identity and which does not rob social and political actors of their agency, the essays explore paternal and maternal representations of political actors, philosophical writers, film makers, and others. Specific topics include the idealization of responsible fatherhood by the Nation of Islam and the Promise Keepers movement and the possible contribution of chaos physics as a model for agency without subjects. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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