Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

historical events projected in a scripted piece; unique
Though not especially dense in historical detail (and likely was not intended to be given the format of the piece) this work yields nuances of personality which are easily appreciated by readers familiar with recent Combodian political history ... Read more

Product Description
HELENE CIXOUS

This is a poetic study of the highly influential French feminist and writer Helene Cixous.

Helene Cixous was born in Oran, Algeria, on June 5, 1937. She studied at the Universite de Bordeaux, the Sorbonne, and the new, experimental post-1968 Universite de Paris VIII-Vincennes, which is now at Saint Denis. Her doctoral thesis, L’Exil de James Joyce ou l’art du remplacement, was published in 1968. Her best known works are The Newly Born Woman (written with Catherine Clement) and the the essay “The Laugh of the Medusa” (both 1975). In feminist theory, Helene Cixous’ most influential works have been The Newly Born Woman, “The Laugh of the Medusa”, and “Castration or Decapitation”.

By 1991 Cixous had written some 50 novels, plays, and texts. She has been aligned with the French publishing house Des Femmes, and collaborated with the Theatre du Soleil (Cixous has worked for years with the theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine).

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Cixous became among the most frequently cited of feminists and feminist philosophers. Following Angst (1977), Cixous’ feminism became more militant (as with many other feminists), and was associated with the Politique et Psychoanalyse (‘Psych et Po’) women’s political group, founded by Antoinette Fouque.

Helene Cixous says, in the famous article “The Laugh of the Medusa”, ‘[a]nd why don’t you write? Write! Writing is for you, you are for you... Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you’. For Cixous (who is loved and loathed by feminists nearly as energetically as Andrea Dworkin or Germaine Greer or Princess Diana), writing is absolutely crucial, and central. Cixous asserted that ‘writing, writing poetically, treating language as one of the most important things in the world, today sounds mad. Yet for human beings it is the first most important thing’. Writing is oxygen to her, she must write to live, as she says:

Customer Reviews (1)

QUIRKY, SENSUAL, POWERFUL, ECCENTRIC, PROLIFIC
If you like very poetic and intelligent and illuminating writing, then you must read Helene Cixous. She is a total original, writing in a style quite unlike anything you have ever read. She is quirky, sensual, powerful, eccentric and very productive. Kelly Ives has produced a handy introduction to Cixous' major works which I liked because it was clearly written. Most of Cixous' theories are in here, but not obscured with further theorizing.
It's also useful that Ives has placed Cixous alongside her contemporaries, in particular Julia Kristeva, Monique Wittig and Luce Irigaray. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first monograph on the artist Maria Chevska. Like her work this book offers different approaches to its subjects: an essay by the renowned critic and art historian Tony Godfrey considers the artist's oeuvre from its painterly beginnings to its 'multimedia' present. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an introductory study of the work of Helene Cixous, novelist, dramatist and critic, whose work has had an extensive impact on the new French feminist theoretical movement. ... Read more

Product Description

Hélène Cixous is more than an influential theorist. She is also a groundbreaking author and playwright. Combining an idiosyncratic mix of autobiographical and fictional narrative with a host of philosophical and poetic observations, Cixous's writing matches the kaleidoscopic nature of her thought, offering new ways of conceptualizing sex, relationships, identity, and the self, among other topics.

Yet, as Jacques Derrida once observed, a "profound misunderstanding" hangs over the accomplishments of Cixous, with many believing the intellectual excelled only at theoretical exploration. Providing a truly liberal selection of her writings from throughout her career, Marta Segarra rediscovers Cixous's acts of invention for a new generation to enjoy. Divided into thematic concerns, these works fully capture Cixous's genius for merging fiction, theory, and the experience of living. They discuss dreaming in the feminine, Algeria and Germany, love and the other, the animal, Derrida, and the theater. They defy classification, locking literature, philosophy, and psychoanalysis into thrilling new patterns of engagement. Whether readers are familiar with Cixous or are approaching her thought for the first time, all will find fresh perspectives on gender, fiction, drama, philosophy, religion, and the postcolonial.

Product Description
"Ex-Cities," a new release in the Contemporary Artist Series at Slought Books, arises from a shared concern for displacement and exile in the work of Helene Cixous and British artist Maria Chevska. Visual documentation of "Vera's Room," Chevska's installation in the galleries, is interspersed throughout Cixous' text exploring the relation of art and literature to cities and their destruction. This bilingual publication includes a companion audio CD as well as a foreword by Eric Prenowitz and contributions by editors Aaron Levy and Jean-Michel Rabate. The companion CD is derived from a reading by Cixous at Slought Foundation in October 2005. Co-published with the Alice Paul Center for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Pennsylvania; translations by Laurent Milesi.

Maria: "I have known for a long time that one does not go anywhere. it is the cities or the countries that come or do not come to you. Cities are fateful letters. They only arrive lost. They only arrive posthumously.
Helene

"[Ex-Cities] takes displacement and exile as its points of departure in exploring the relation of art and literature to cities and their destruction. We can begin to read this meditation by remembering that cities are more than just habitats or geographical entities. They extend beyond networks of communication, commerce, sociality, or politics. Cities often exist in the form of memories and aspirations, and these cities are no less real despite their intangible nature. We always carry with us the memories of the cities that we have lived in or lost, abandoned or destroyed. These memories permit us to rebuild them from their ruins; we build new cities upon the memories of others." -- From the introduction by Aaron Levy (Editor) ... Read more