
Reading the Impossible
Sexual Difference, Critique, and the Stamp of History
Elizabeth Weed(Author)
Fordham University Press
Published on 7. May 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-1-5315-0679-7 (ISBN)
Description
Reading the impossible has never seemed less possible. A few decades ago, critical readings could view the collapse of foundationalism optimistically. With meaning no longer soldered onto being, there was hope for all those beings whose meaning had been forever ordained by Nature or the Divine. Critical reading thus became a way of exploring the devious workings of knowledge and power. But as non-foundational systems of meaning have proven to be so perfectly suited to the transactional logics of the market, reading for the impasses of meaning has come to be seen as quixotic, impractical, and dated.
To concur with that view, Elizabeth Weed argues, is to embrace the fantasy told by the neoliberal order. To read the impossible is to disrupt that fantasy, with its return to stable categories of marketable identity, in order to contest the inexorable workings of misogyny and racism. This book seeks to disturb the positivity of identity in the hope of retrieving the impossibility of sexual difference, an impossibility that has its effects in the Real of misogyny.
A return to the famous debate between Derrida and Lacan on the impossibility of sexual difference yields two different readings of the impossible. In reconsidering these questions, Weed shows how the practice of reading can powerfully stage the wiles of language and the unconscious. In returning to that earlier moment in the context of current debates on the role of reading and interpretation, Weed offers a fresh perspective on what is at stake for critical reading in the neoliberal university.
To concur with that view, Elizabeth Weed argues, is to embrace the fantasy told by the neoliberal order. To read the impossible is to disrupt that fantasy, with its return to stable categories of marketable identity, in order to contest the inexorable workings of misogyny and racism. This book seeks to disturb the positivity of identity in the hope of retrieving the impossibility of sexual difference, an impossibility that has its effects in the Real of misogyny.
A return to the famous debate between Derrida and Lacan on the impossibility of sexual difference yields two different readings of the impossible. In reconsidering these questions, Weed shows how the practice of reading can powerfully stage the wiles of language and the unconscious. In returning to that earlier moment in the context of current debates on the role of reading and interpretation, Weed offers a fresh perspective on what is at stake for critical reading in the neoliberal university.
More details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
213 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5315-0679-7 (9781531506797)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Elizabeth Weed is Director Emerita of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University and editor of differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies.
Content
Prologue: Why read the impossible now? 1
1. States of Impasse 30
2. Reading Sexual Difference 42
3. Reading the Stamp of History 89
4. Reading the Feminist Impossible 120
Coda 125
Acknowledgments 131
Notes 133
Bibliography 163
Index 175
1. States of Impasse 30
2. Reading Sexual Difference 42
3. Reading the Stamp of History 89
4. Reading the Feminist Impossible 120
Coda 125
Acknowledgments 131
Notes 133
Bibliography 163
Index 175