Kathrin Thiele

Ethos of Diffraction: New Paradigms for a (Post)humanist Ethics

Special Issue: Diffracted Worlds – Diffractive Readings: Onto-Epistemologies and the Critical Humanities

Diffraction: Onto-Epistemology, Quantum Physics and the Critical Humanities

In critical cultural analysis, the metaphor of ‘diffraction’ surfaced in 1992 with Donna Haraway’s ‘The Promises ofMonsters’ as a feminist tool to rethink difference/s beyond binary opposition/s. Drawing on physical optics, where it describes the interference pattern of diffracting light rays, Haraway adopted diffraction to move our images of difference/s from oppositional to differential, from static to productive, and our ideas of scientific knowledge from reflective, disinterested judgment to mattering, embedded involvement. It is an ‘invented category of semantics’ that builds on and contests metaphors we habitually use to describe practices of knowing and living.

The World with(out) Others, or How to Unlearn the Desire for the Other

What are we to do with Gilles Deleuze’s most fascinating yet troubling text ‘Michel Tournier or the World without Others’ which can be found in the appendix of The Logic of Sense (1990) and which devotes itself to the reworking of the Crusoe-myth in Michel Tournier’s Friday from 1967? Does this text, as Peter Hallward once argued, ultimately show that ‘Deleuze works very literally toward a world without others; that he denies the philosophical reality of all relations — with and between others’ (1997, p. 530)? Does Deleuze’s utterly non-moralizing philosophy- and that it is non-moralizing is probably both the best known and the most significant feature of his thought — does it, in its striving for a thought of ‘difference in itself, lead us into the dead end of an absolute solipsism; into ‘the singular as absolute, beyond relation, as sovereign or self-constituent’ (Hallward 1997, p. 530)? And, thus, do we have to read Deleuze’s article as his most explicit and radical statement of a move ‘out of this world’ — philosophically challenging but ethico-politically inefficient, a claim Hallward makes in view of Deleuze’s œuvre as a whole.

Other Headings: Ben Jelloun, Derrida, Sansal and the Critique of Europe

This essay diffracts the question of the heading of Europe that Derrida asked in 1990. We do so through the prism of harraga presented in Tahar Ben Jellouns Leaving Tangiers and Boualem Sansals Harraga. Although Europe as the capital has been ‘de-identified’ (Derrida 1992, 75) in the wake of decolonization and postcolonial critique, it still has to be de-identified always anew. Something has been promised in its name and is, we suggest, currently most forcefully reclaimed by people who ‘burn up the road’. Listening to these claims is vital for any future ‘Europe’ because the responses currently presented by ‘Europe’ are still either self-identification and closure or aversion from Europe altogether. With reference to Derrida, this essay insists on the necessity to take note of and affirm that Europe must ‘open itself onto the other shore of another heading’. Derrida was hopeful (‘that is already at work anyway’), underneath and alongside the closure of borders since the early 1990s and the increase in clandestine migration. Although we see mainly symptoms of radical closure, with Derrida and the harragas this essay asserts it can be otherwise – that it is Europes brutal failure to ignore this call of the heading of the others, forestalling any chance for an ‘other of the heading’. It is thus ‘Europes’ duty to listen to the (re)call of these others.

Pushing Dualisms and Differences: From ‘Equality versus Difference’ To ‘Nonmimetic Sharing and Staying With the Trouble’

Abstract Critically revisiting the ‘equality versus difference’ dualism that is inscribed in the feminist canon of the last decades is an important task for feminist ethico-political discussions today. The theoretico-political tension between claims of equality and difference still troubles feminist discussions and thus needs to be addressed by contemporary research. Yet, moving beyond the persisting antagonism cannot be done by either moving outside the problematic relation or by choosing one term over the other. It is, as Joan W. Scott noted, impossible to choose between equality and difference, so that other ways of tackling the problem are needed. This article suggests a new line of flight for feminist politics in respect to this founding paradox from a feminist new materialist/posthuman(ist) perspective. Via an affirmative reading of Irigarays cosmopolitical concern of Sharing the World (2008) and a critical investigation into the structuring ‘anthropological limit’ (Derrida) of her sexual difference thinking, the author pushes the dualistic framework of equality versus difference towards a thought of ‘nonmimetic sharing’ and ‘staying with the trouble’. In her argument, she turns to the differential worldings of Groszs ‘differing’, Barads ‘quantum’ and Haraways ‘terran’ in order to open up ethico-political alternatives to engage difference(s) differently. The article ultimately argues that by affirming all multifaceted (im)material worlding entanglements, significant new insights can be gained for both theorizing differentiality as ethico-onto-epistemological ‘becoming-with’ and for practising this world of/as difference(s) in a more ‘response-able’ manner.

What is Species Memory? Or, Humanism, Memory and the Afterlives of “1492”’

Are we on the same page here? Because we too are also now struggling to move beyond the knee-jerk limits of the Us and the Them.1One key historical ‘site of memory’ in which the Jamaican novelist, ...

Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture. A Comprehensive Guide to Gender Studies

Introduction Rosemarie Buikema and Iris van der Tuin Part 1: Debates 1. The Arena of Feminism: Simone de Beauvoir and the History of Feminism Iris van der Tuin 2. The Arena of the Body: The Cyborg and Feminist Views on Biology Cecilia Asberg 3. The Arena of Knowledge: Antigone and Feminist Standpoint Thinking Sarah Bracke and Maria Puig de la Bellacasa 4. The Arena of Disciplines: Gloria Anzaldua and Interdisciplinarity Gloria Wekker 5. The Arena of Imaginings: Sarah Bartmann and the Ethics of Representation Rosemarie Buikema 6. The Arena of the Colony: Phoolan Devi and Postcolonial Critique Sandra Ponzanesi 7. The Arena of Sexuality: the Tomboy and Queer Studies renee c. hoogland Part 2: Disciplines 8. The Crucifixion of Madonna and the Womans Body in Feminist Theology Anne-Marie de Korte 9. The Rising of Mary Magdalene in Feminist Art History Ann-Sophie Lehman 10. Cindy Sherman Confronting Feminism and (Fashion) Photography Marta Zarzycka 11. The 11. Peter Pans Gender and Feminist Theatre Studies Maaike Bleeker 12. Lara Croft, Kill Bill and the Battle for Theory in Feminist Film Studies Anneke Smelik 13. Hacking Barbie in Feminist New Media Studies, Marianne van den Boomen 14. Gender, history and the Politics of Florence Nightingale Geertje Mak and Berteke Waaldijk 15. Helene Swarth and the Construction of Masculinity in Literary Criticism Maaike Meijer Part 3: Food for Thought 16. Dympna and the Figuration of the Woman Warrior Rosi Braidotti