Topologies of Sexual Difference: Space in Philosophy and Visual Art After Irigaray (SUNY series in Gender Theory)

By: Rebecca Hill and James Sares and Louise Burchill

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Synopsis: Brings together wide-ranging, interdisciplinary analyses of Luce Irigaray's rethinking of space with respect to sexual difference and the visual arts.A rethinking of space is central to Luce Irigaray's philosophy of sexual difference. Topologies of Sexual Difference is the first edited collection to focus on this task through a sustained consideration of both Irigaray's critique of the Western tradition's systematic conflation of femininity and space and her transvaluative topological redeployment of space in theorizing sexual difference. Across thirteen chapters, Irigarayan space is thematized as porous, fluid, continuous, and self-differentiating. Contributors engage with the origins of life, affect, the aesthetics of the maternal and placental, an Irigarayan morphology inclusive of trans embodiment, and—in a rare focus—the expression of sexuate specificity in creative practice. Topologies of Sexual Difference thus demonstrates the fundamental importance of Irigaray's rethinking of space for Western philosophy and the visual arts.