Elizabeth Grosz (2011). “The Future of Feminist Theory: Dreams for New Knowledges” in
Becoming Undone. Darwinian Reflections of Life, Politics, and Art. Durham: Duke University
Press, 75-87.
"the number of women who function as political leaders is lower now than two decades ago" 74 Less than 10% of the UN member states have female leaders
"Knowledges are weapons, tools, in the struggles of power over what counts as truth, over what functions as useful, over what can be used to create new systems, forces, regimes, and techniques, none of which are indifferent to power." 76
"In addressing the question, ‘‘What is feminist theory?,’’ we are primarily addressing the question of what it is to think differently, innovatively, in terms that have never been developed before, about the most forceful and impressive impacts that impinge upon us and that thinking, concepts, and theories address if not resolve or answer." 77
"Life emerges from the chaos of materiality through chance, through the protraction of the past into the present; that is, through the production of virtuality, latency, or potential which adds to the materiality of chaos the possibility of finding some order, of extracting enough consistency to enable life to elaborate itself" 77
"Concepts emerge, have value, and function only through the impact of problems generated from outside." 78
"So concepts are ways in which the living add ideality to the world, transforming the givenness of chaos, the pressing problem, into various forms of order, into possibilities for being otherwise." 78
"So concepts are not answers, solutions—though we tend to think that solutions eliminate problems, in fact a problem always coexists with its solutions." 78
The characteristics of a concept
1. "every concept, as a complex heterogeneity, has components which themselves are concepts." 79
2. "each concept produces out of its diverse components a provisional but tightly contained consistency that is both an endoconsistency and an exoconsistency... even a slight shift in the relations of these components or these neighboring concepts begins a process of producing a new concept." 79
3. "it is a form of absolute self-proximity, of self-survey without distance or perspective. In other words, the concept grasps and contains its diverse components intensively" 79
4. "it is incorporeal or virtual even though it is ‘‘e√ectuated’’ through bodies and events. Concepts address events, not as their answer or solution, but as a form of framing that connects an event or its features to others" 79
5. "Concepts themselves, while representable, are not reducible to discourse or representation, for they are modes of resonance or vibration, modes of connection or disconnection between other concepts and, above all, to events" 80
6. "concepts are not isolated though they are cohesive." 80
"The concept is what we produce when we need to address the forces of the present and to transform them into new and different forces that act in the future." 80
"Feminist theory is essential, not as a plan or anticipation of action to come, but as the addition of ideality, incorporeality, to the horrifying materiality, the weighty reality, of the present as patriarchal, as racist, as ethnocentric, a ballast to enable it to be transformed." 81
"feminism is the very excess and site of transformation of patriarchy" 82
"Without concepts, without theory, practice has no hope, its goal is only reversal and redistribution, not transformation." 83
"if the subject strives to be recognized as a subject of value in a culture which does not value that subject in the terms it seeks, what is such recognition worth?" 84
You must be able to work within the system before you can grow beyond it. The work she has now involves that. Theory constructs the world as well as the individual. "I am not what others see in me, but what I do, what I make" 85 Contradicts what Veerle said about her contradiction about feminism focusing on the I too much, vs her own definition of what the subject is - I like that this statement is a nice summary of feminist theory and how we must engage more than on the surface - it is what we do and what we make with it that counts - links to bell hooks saying that theory is what you do in your everyday, you live theory "the possession of a term does not bring a process or practice into being; concurrently one may practice theorizing without ever knowing/possessing the term" (hooks theory as liberatory practice 3)
"Linked to the preeminence of the subject and of concepts of subjectivity is the privileging of the epistemological (questions of discourse, knowledge, truth, and scientificity) over the ontological (questions of the real, of matter, of force, or energy)." 85
"feminism needs to direct itself to questions of complexity, emergence, and difference that the study of subjectivity shares in common with the study of chemical and biological phenomena." 86
"the number of women who function as political leaders is lower now than two decades ago" 74 Less than 10% of the UN member states have female leaders
"Knowledges are weapons, tools, in the struggles of power over what counts as truth, over what functions as useful, over what can be used to create new systems, forces, regimes, and techniques, none of which are indifferent to power." 76
"In addressing the question, ‘‘What is feminist theory?,’’ we are primarily addressing the question of what it is to think differently, innovatively, in terms that have never been developed before, about the most forceful and impressive impacts that impinge upon us and that thinking, concepts, and theories address if not resolve or answer." 77
"Life emerges from the chaos of materiality through chance, through the protraction of the past into the present; that is, through the production of virtuality, latency, or potential which adds to the materiality of chaos the possibility of finding some order, of extracting enough consistency to enable life to elaborate itself" 77
"Concepts emerge, have value, and function only through the impact of problems generated from outside." 78
"So concepts are ways in which the living add ideality to the world, transforming the givenness of chaos, the pressing problem, into various forms of order, into possibilities for being otherwise." 78
"So concepts are not answers, solutions—though we tend to think that solutions eliminate problems, in fact a problem always coexists with its solutions." 78
The characteristics of a concept
1. "every concept, as a complex heterogeneity, has components which themselves are concepts." 79
2. "each concept produces out of its diverse components a provisional but tightly contained consistency that is both an endoconsistency and an exoconsistency... even a slight shift in the relations of these components or these neighboring concepts begins a process of producing a new concept." 79
3. "it is a form of absolute self-proximity, of self-survey without distance or perspective. In other words, the concept grasps and contains its diverse components intensively" 79
4. "it is incorporeal or virtual even though it is ‘‘e√ectuated’’ through bodies and events. Concepts address events, not as their answer or solution, but as a form of framing that connects an event or its features to others" 79
5. "Concepts themselves, while representable, are not reducible to discourse or representation, for they are modes of resonance or vibration, modes of connection or disconnection between other concepts and, above all, to events" 80
6. "concepts are not isolated though they are cohesive." 80
"The concept is what we produce when we need to address the forces of the present and to transform them into new and different forces that act in the future." 80
"Feminist theory is essential, not as a plan or anticipation of action to come, but as the addition of ideality, incorporeality, to the horrifying materiality, the weighty reality, of the present as patriarchal, as racist, as ethnocentric, a ballast to enable it to be transformed." 81
"feminism is the very excess and site of transformation of patriarchy" 82
"Without concepts, without theory, practice has no hope, its goal is only reversal and redistribution, not transformation." 83
"if the subject strives to be recognized as a subject of value in a culture which does not value that subject in the terms it seeks, what is such recognition worth?" 84
You must be able to work within the system before you can grow beyond it. The work she has now involves that. Theory constructs the world as well as the individual. "I am not what others see in me, but what I do, what I make" 85 Contradicts what Veerle said about her contradiction about feminism focusing on the I too much, vs her own definition of what the subject is - I like that this statement is a nice summary of feminist theory and how we must engage more than on the surface - it is what we do and what we make with it that counts - links to bell hooks saying that theory is what you do in your everyday, you live theory "the possession of a term does not bring a process or practice into being; concurrently one may practice theorizing without ever knowing/possessing the term" (hooks theory as liberatory practice 3)
"Linked to the preeminence of the subject and of concepts of subjectivity is the privileging of the epistemological (questions of discourse, knowledge, truth, and scientificity) over the ontological (questions of the real, of matter, of force, or energy)." 85
"feminism needs to direct itself to questions of complexity, emergence, and difference that the study of subjectivity shares in common with the study of chemical and biological phenomena." 86
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