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How do philosophy and analytical psychology contribute to the mal-figuring of the feminine and women? Does Luce Irigaray's work represent the possibility of individuation for women, an escape from masculine projection and an affirming re-figuring of women? And what would individuation for women entail?

This work postulates a novel and unique relationship between Carl Jung and Luce Irigaray. Its central argument, that an ontologically different feminine identity situated in women's embodiment, women's genealogy and a women's divine is possible, develops and re-figures Jung's notion of individuation in terms of an Irigarayan woman-centred politics. Individuation is re-thought as a politically charged issue centred around sex-gendered difference focussed on a critique of Jung's conception of the feminine.

The book outlines Plato's conception of the feminine as disorder and argues that this conception is found in Jung's notion of the anima feminine. It then argues that Luce Irigaray's work challenges the notion of the feminine as disorder. Her mimetic adoption of this figuring of the feminine is a direct assault on what can be understood as a culturally dominant Western understanding. Luce Irigaray argues for a feminine divine which will model an ideal feminine just as the masculine divine models a masculine ideal. In making her claims, Luce Irigaray, the book argues, is expanding and elaborating Jung's idea of individuation.

Jung, Irigaray, Individuation brings together philosophy, analytical psychology and psychoanalysis in suggesting that Luce Irigaray's conception of the feminine is a critical re-visioning of the open-ended possibilities for human being expressed in Jung's idea of individuation. This fresh insight will intrigue academics and analysts alike in its exploration of the different traditions from which Carl Jung and Luce Irigaray speak.

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divine, flesh, embodied, word ... Read more

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This study examines Luce Irigaray's oeuvre through the question of the divine, focusing upon her contention that women need a female divine if they are about to become subjects. It attempts to demonstrate that the issue of the divine should not be considered as one aspect of her thought but that it is central to her philosophy of sexual difference. Hence Irigaray's critique of patriarchy is presented as a critique of the dominance of a religion of masculinity that favours a single universal. Her proposal for two sexed universal divines is explored, along with her specific suggestions for female divine ideals. Particular emphasis is given to her engagements with Marx, Nietzsche, and Hegelianism, and to the mode of her adoption of Christianity. The study applauds the radical profundity of Irigaray's philosophy of sexual difference, while remaining critical of the universalism in her notion of the divine for the doubt it casts upon the realization of a sexed culture. ... Read more

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LUCE IRIGARAY

Luce Irigaray is one of the premier French philosophers and feminists. This is a poetic exploration of the often controversial thinker and feminist. Kelly Ives discusses Irigaray's relation with Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, and other feminists. Irigaray's provocative notions include: labial lips embracing; sexual difference; the speculum; 'sexuate rights' and sexual ethics; women's language and power; angels; and female mystics.

Irigaray was born in 1932 in Belgium. Irigaray was, famously, a member of the Ecole Freudienne, presided over by Jacques Lacan. Irigaray's dissertation (Speculum de l'autre femme, later published) created some controversy among the members of the Freudian School, and Irigaray became an outcast of the ecole freudienne.

During the 1970s and 1980s Irigaray taught at Rotterdam, Bologna, Toronto and Paris, among other places. With books such as Ce Sexe qui n'en est pas un, Et l'une ne bouge pas sans l'autre, Amante Marine: De Friedrich Nietzsche, Sexes et parentes, Sexes et genres a travers les langues and Le Oubli de l'air: Chez Martin Heidegger, Irigaray became a major philosopher.

Luce Irigaray concentrates on the act of enunciation, the act of producing discourse. Irigaray stresses the interiority of the speaking subject, the traces of subjectivity found in acts of communication. The continual denial of a sexualized discourse threatens the possibility of an emergent non-patriarchal society. 'When women use je as the subject of a sentence, this woman je most often addresses a man and not another woman or women. It does not relate to itself either'.

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GOOD INTRODUCTION TO LUCE IRIGARAY
There is no contemporary philosopher quite like Luce Irigaray, the French feminist and writer (French - but she was born in Belgium). Some of Irigaray's ideas have been criticized by feminists (such as her notion of woman's identity as two labial lips touching or kissing), but all of Irigaray's theories are compelling (for instance, her explorations of spirituality and saints and angels).
Kelly Ives has put together an introduction to Irigaray's philosophies which is concise, written in a non-obscure style, and covers most of the key points. ... Read more

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The essays in this groundbreaking collection stage conversations between the thought of the controversial feminist philosopher, linguist and psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray and premodern writers, ranging from Empedocles and Homer, to Shakespeare, Spenser and Donne. They explore both the pre-Enlightenment roots of Luce Irigaray's thought, and the impact that her writings have had on our understanding of ancient, medieval and Renaissance culture.

Luce Irigaray has been a major figure in Anglo-American literary theory, philosophy and gender studies ever since her germinal works, Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not One, were published in English translation in 1985. This collection is the first sustained examination of Irigaray's crucial relationship to premodern discourses underpinning Western culture, and of the transformative effect she has had on scholars working in pre-Enlightenment periods. Like Irigaray herself, the essays work at the intersections of gender, theory, historicism and language.

This collection offers powerful ways of understanding premodern texts through Irigaray's theories that allow us to imagine our past and present relationship to economics, science, psychoanalysis, gender, ethics and social communities in new ways.

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Luce Irigaray is one of the world's most influential theorists. From, her early ground-breaking work on linguistics to her later revolutionary work on the ethics of sexual difference, Irigaray has positioned herself as one of the essential thinkers of our time. This collection of key writings, selected by Luce Irigaray herself, presents a complete picture of her work to date across the fields of Philosophy, Linguistics, Spirituality, Art and Politics. An indispensable work for students of philosophy, literary theory, feminist theory, linguistics and cultural studies. ... Read more

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The authors of these essays-among them Judith Butler, Elizabeth Weed, and Rosi Braidotti-shed new light on the relationship of Irigaray to many of the philosophers she has "romanced," from Aristotle to Deleuze. This groundbreaking volume is the first collection of essays that attempts to go beyond the question of essentialism in order to provide a full critical assessment of Irigaray's contribution to a number of fields, most notably philosophy. ... Read more

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Ethics of Eros sheds light on contemporary feminist discourse by questioning the basic distinctions and categories in feminist theory. Tina Chanter uses the work of Luce Irigaray as the focus for a critique of French and Anglo-American feminism as it is articulated in the debate over essentialism. While these two branches of feminism represent opposing views, Chanter advocates a productive exchange between the two. ... Read more

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Leading scholars examine the relation between Irigaray's early writings and her later, more political work. ... Read more

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Conversations is an important collection of interviews in which Luce Irigaray discusses the full range of her work and ideas with leading academics in the fields of Continental Philosophy, Feminist Theory and Critical Theory. Covering all the key topics that have been central to her work in the last thirty years, such as feminism, spirituality, difference, politics, education, and `being two', this book offers essential insights into Irigaray's career as one of the world's most important contemporary thinkers.

Topics and theorists approached include: philosophy, universality and difference, motherhood and gendered subjectivities, cultivation of desire and love, the other and others, globalization and ethics, politics and human rights, spirituality and religion, and, of course, being and becoming woman. ... Read more

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"Conversations"
This is an excellent survey of Luce Irigaray's thinking on a range of matters, through the very appropriate medium of conversations. ... Read more

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For Tamsin Lorraine, the works of Luce Irigaray and Gilles Deleuze open up new ways of thinking about subjectivity. Focusing on the affinities between the theorists' views--while addressing weaknesses of each--she offers both a cogent analysis of their often challenging writings on this topic and an accessible introduction to their philosophical projects. Through her readings she articulates an approach to subjectivity as an embodied, dynamic process, one that speaks to beliefs about personal identity as well as to the practical problems people face in their relations with one another. Lorraine begins by distinguishing between "conceptual" and "corporeal" considerations of subjectivity and by reviewing recent interdisciplinary efforts to theorize the body. She then turns to Irigaray and Deleuze, finding in the former's notion of the "feminine other" and in the latter's, unique conceptions of nomadic thinking inspiration for a model designed to overcome mind/body dualisms. Her analysis of Irigaray and Deleuze suggests a conception of humanity which amounts to a visceral philosophy--a way of thinking that is receptive to the fluxes of dynamic life forces. ... Read more

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Superb
As a philosopher with particular interest in the body and the Earth, I found this an utterly splendid book. It is an utterly lucid presentation of the work of Irigaray and Deleuze -- especially compelling for the clarity of thought that it displays, and the real beauty and sensitivity of Lorraine's writing. One of the finest works of philosophical commentary that I've read in years, written by a thinker whose intelligence gleams with warmth and ethical intensity.

Post-phenomenological, post-body, post-representation
There is a hole left by Western philosophy in its (absent) discourse of the body. Recent fascinations with Merleau-Ponty and a phenomenological approach only really go so far to rectify this, but require a reaffirmationof the subject and of subjectivity.

Deleuze (the first half of the book)and Irigaray (the second) are good antidotes to this. There is much thereto investigate in terms of something more 'visceral', but this does notmean simplya 'philosophy of the body'. It discusses and develops ideasgoing around this set of problematics, looking at metaphors of fluidity andbodily experience, as well as theorisations of overcoming and transformingthe bodily.

I am well-read in Deleuze, so Lorraine's treatment was alittle basic, but would serve as a good introduction to some of the mostimportant ideas, including the famous 'body without organs'. But I didn'tknow Irigaray well, and this book was a useful platform from which to jumpinto much of the relevant material. Lorraine quotes often and well, rightfrom across the respective oeuvres, and so would be useful for someone whois not widely-read in this area to launch right in. It helps, too, thatLorraine writes clearly and understandably, and is able to convey some ofthe most complex of ideas in a comprehensible manner. ... Read more