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[Music]
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alright hello everyone and welcome to
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the university of philosophical research
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my name is Greg Salyer it's if it's your
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first time welcome I'm the president and
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thank you we're glad you're here if
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you're returning welcome back you know
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what's in store good talk
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good discussion good interactions and
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maybe maybe we might even find some
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wisdom along the way that would be cool
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if we did what's going on here if you're
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interested our two groups don't always
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cross but sometimes they do our fall
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semester starts October 8th and we have
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some amazing classes ready for you there
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we teach online classes only here this
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is a class but it's not for credit and
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it's free so we don't count that but
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it's probably the best class but we do
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have some great stuff short story
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writing world religions some psychology
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many classes taught by graduates of the
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Pacific Graduate Institute our good
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friends
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here's Dana white right here from
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Pacifica there's Maggie hey Maggie did
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you graduate from Pacifica with what
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what this is Maggie
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Maggie's the best audience member ever I
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gave a talk at Pacifica and it was about
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coyote in part and if you know coyote
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you're supposed to laugh because coyotes
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funny and everybody's like and Maggie's
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just cracking out in the front row
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cracking out it was wonderful thank you
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yeah all right let's get to it it's a
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interesting night out there it feels
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like rain even so it's a good night for
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French literary theory I think
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a Lean Six you laugh of the Medusa
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this is passages meaningly take a
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passage that is pregnant with meaning we
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read it we zoom way out provide some
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context for it and then work our way
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back to it where we then read it again
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in light of what we've learned along the
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way this is a good one tonight I love
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adding six ooh and I hope you will too I
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to overflow my desires have invented new
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desires my body knows unheard-of songs
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time and again I too have felt so full
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of luminous torrents that I could burst
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burst with forms much more beautiful
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than those which are put up in frames
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and sold for a fortune and I too said
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nothing showed nothing I didn't open my
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mouth I didn't repaint half my half of
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the world I was ashamed I was afraid and
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I swallowed my shame and my fear and I
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said to myself you're a mad what's the
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meaning of these waves these floods
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these outbursts where is the Abuna twin
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who hasn't been ashamed of her strength
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who's surprised and horrified by the
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fantastic torment of her drives but she
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was made to believe that a well-adjusted
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normal woman has a divine composure
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hasn't accused herself of being a
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monster who feeling a funny desire
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stirring inside her to sing to write to
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dare to speak in short to bring out
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something new hasn't thought that she
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was sick well her shameful sickness is
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that she resists death that she makes
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trouble
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Elling 6uu was born in 1937 in algeria i
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what she calls a hybrid city which is
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important as you'll see in her work full
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of neighborhoods peoples of languages
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her parents were even George she was a
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refugee the thief was from Germany and
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George was a physician who actually was
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more of a researcher well he was a
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researcher and he treated people with
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tuberculosis and he himself succumbed to
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tuberculosis early on Eve then must find
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work she becomes a midwife and she was
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known as the the Arabs midwife in
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Algiers so she again
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her mother is crossing these borders
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these borders these national and other
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borders which influences alene and then
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she was expelled as midwives were in
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1971 from Algiers what it is about
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midwives that scares the [ __ ] out of
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people but it really they really do have
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him before the employer it was part of
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the Inquisition as you know to get rid
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of midwives because there's oh I don't
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know mean terrifying I don't know
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actually six you will have something to
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say about that as I think about it
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she says my own writing was born in
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Algeria out of a lost country of the
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dead father and the foreign mother so
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you see she was yes
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archetype not that I'm aware of
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yeah it's an interesting question so
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there wouldn't be the mother they'd be
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like something middle in between Dana do
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you are Maggie yeah
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on the on the in the liminal area right
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in between which was part of the
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inquisition as well so they were which
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is
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she represented what birth without
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violence oh yeah yeah I can so no
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forceps and the tender hands very nice
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yeah yeah okay
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very good I remember I used to hang out
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at the University of Glasgow and
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Scotland and they had if you go there
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there's a there's a door I mean it's an
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ancient University but there's the door
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that says Department of midwifery I'm
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like what that can't be right but it was
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so well now you've got us off on a very
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interesting tangent maybe we should do a
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discussion of midwifery yeah so she she
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is in this already lemon old zone
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herself because their parents are
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refugees and and if her father dies from
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disease he's studying
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it's an odd life of irony and paradox
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and inability to find a stable identity
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in a stable script right and I don't
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sure some of you have experienced that
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I'm not sure I've experienced it because
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my script is laid out I'm a white man in
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America I don't have to think too much
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about anything just follow the script
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right there but lots of other people
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have to improvise with mini scripts
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right conflicting scripts usually and in
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fact that's what happened when she went
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to school in Paris she became very aware
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of cultural and national and sexual
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differences she's also Jewish so she's a
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French Algerian Jew and a woman
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so right she she was often there was a
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quota on Jews in the classes and so she
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was often the only Jew in her class one
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of the few girls in her class and she
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says of being the only North African
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student in her class that was where I
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felt the true torments of Exile
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I was deported right inside my own
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classroom her words in the same year she
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meets Jacques Derrida and you've heard
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me speak of Derrida
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before and we'll come back to him in a
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minute but he was the founder he would
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hate that word of a post structuralism
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and the first to create the art and
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science of deconstruction I can tell you
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what that means that you probably don't
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want to know basically it's it's about
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showing how language does not support a
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metaphysics
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you cannot attach language to a
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metaphysics language does not attach to
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anything outside itself he argues this
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was a profound relationship for six who
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they began talking about Joyce she did a
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thesis on Joyce and if you know Joyce at
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all he's right for this kind of
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deconstruction and post-structuralist
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discourse and so she she begins to write
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like Derrida to a degree but in her own
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feminine voice as you will see well she
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was very very much influenced by him
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then of course you have the student and
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workers strikes in Paris in May 1968 and
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she was highly very much involved in
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that and in fact right after that I find
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this fascinating and I love the French
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for this as they created a new
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University called Paris 8 and it was
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supposed to
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supposed to be solidarity with students
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and workers and of course there was a
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fight almost immediately because the
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students were being were appearing to
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privileged to the workers and the
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workers said you're appearing to
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privileged and they said we are not and
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and this is how groups go and movements
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go all movements but what she did here
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was amazing in Paris 8 this new
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experimental University
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she brought together she was given the
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chair of English and she found a place
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for a number of exiled Latin American
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writers so if you remember in Chile and
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other place Argentina and South America
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things were not good in the 70s and she
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was actually very much influenced by a
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Brazilian writer named Clarice Liz
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Spector and incorporated her into her
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work very much fact I'll talk more about
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this this in a minute but so she brought
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these writers to Paris to teach in Paris
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8 Jayaraj Jeanette
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she brought Stetson Todorov michel
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foucault g Dooley's and well and she
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launched a journal they are called
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poetic and she deferred that same year
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as she started a university she defended
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her thesis on Joyce it's easy to do
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thesis right it's attenders it's not
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that hard you could start a university
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couldn't you while you're doing your
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thesis she set up in 1974 the first
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doctoral doctoral program in women's
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studies in Europe and again this is
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amazing
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this is 1974 right Women's Studies not
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easily not easily done so her over a so
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I want to use a lot of French words
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tonight and mispronounce them as much as
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I can
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her over her body of work is really
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amazing and we found this over
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again is is that the great wisdom
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teachers the great teachers the great
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creators are almost never bound by any
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sort of discipline or convention so
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she's she's a theorist which is a whole
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thing in France a whole separate thing
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she's a literary critic she's a
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philosopher she's a playwright she's a
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feminist she's a novelist she does all
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these things she I think she even
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performed in one of her plays she's
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amazing she and well what does she say
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here she says I give myself a poet's
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right
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a poet's right to speak otherwise I
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would not dare to speak so pretty
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amazing especially given this background
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which is marginalized and liminal and
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where she's never felt at home maybe
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that's because she gives herself the
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poet's right to speak I don't know she
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says of this of Derrida and the specter
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first is it is true that color isla
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specter has an absolutely exceptional
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place in my space of references and that
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she is unique for me again this is a
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kind of experimental Brazilian writer
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who does kind of crime novels but
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they're more philosophical I compare her
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with no one she says with no one among
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our contemporaries another person also
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has a unique and exceptional place and
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it is Jacques Derrida and in a certain
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way I could say it's a simplification
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that each of them this Brazilian woman
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this Algerian French Jew man occupies a
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sort of ideal place of writing for me
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taking sexual difference into account he
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occupy in the space of a certain
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masculinity capable of femininity and
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she occupying the space of femininity
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capable of masculinity in terms of God
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here's what she says I thought this was
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brilliant
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what I must say also is that clearly
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like all writers who invoke do the word
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and the word do in their text I am
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religiously atheistic but literally
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deistic that is ultimately I think no
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one can write without the aid of God but
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then what is God without the aid of
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writing let me say that again
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I'm religiously atheistic that literally
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deistic that is ultimately I think that
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no one can write about right without the
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aid of God but what is it this God
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without the aid of writing God as
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writing certainly played out in her work
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and in her life and then we'll come back
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to this but she's she's really known in
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the academic world at least for her
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concept of Eckrich or feminine or
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women's writing but it's not as simple
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as it sounds and you're gonna see
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exactly what she means by that all right
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so the essay is the laughs of the medusa
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it's one of the most profound and
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promulgated essays in feminists Larry
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theory and criticism that you will find
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she's engaging an old myth though right
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Medusa now we've talked about Medusa a
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little bit here before so we should
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remind ourselves of who's laughing in
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the essay the Medusa of Mythology has no
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reason to laugh and every reason to cry
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but originally she was beautiful and her
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name means guardian or protectress right
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not many people know this because we
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like to think of her as the original
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femme fatale but she means her name
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means guardian or protectors and she's
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part of the three Gorgon sisters Pindar
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the poet called her beautiful Medusa and
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Ovid said that she was she was the
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object of jealous aspiration of many
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suitors right so let's not forget this
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Medusa was originally beautiful and
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desired and she was a guardian or
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protectress and that's what the Gorgons
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were but then something happens and as
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with women and myth and in life I'm
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sorry to say it's something violent
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beside this is from the Theogony Hesiod
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Poseidon he of the dark hair lay with
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Medusa in a soft metal meadow among
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spring flowers okay so presiding had sex
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with her that's one version from Essie
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here's Ovid who is of course going to be
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r-rated and much more violent if not
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x-rated he says Medusa was violated in
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Athena's shrine but the lord of the sea
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Poseidon and Zeus his daughter turned
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away she turned away and covered her
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shield covered with her shield her
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virgin eyes so Athena turned hides her
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eyes at the sight of her daughter she
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was a priestess in Athena's temple and
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she cannot bear or does not want to see
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this the weight you're thinking oh
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that's out of sympathy that's out of
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compassion and then for fitting
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punishment transformed the Gorgons
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lovely hair to loathsome snakes
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Athena did that for a fitting punishment
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for being raped
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I wish I had to explain this more to you
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to contextualize it more but I really
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don't do it here in 2018 Ovid continues
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in the metamorphosis as a bird Medusa
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the snake trusts mother of the flying
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steed Pegasus was seduced by Poseidon
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and that's the famous Caravaggio the
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image of her seeing herself transformed
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into such a repulsive creature Medusa
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fled her home never to return
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wandering about aboard dreaded and
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shunned by the rest of the world she
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turned into a character worthy of her
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outer appearance she turned into a
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character worthy of her outer appearance
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in her despair she fled to Africa where
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wondrous wandering restlessly from place
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to place young snakes dropped from her
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hair and that is how Africa became a
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hotbed of venomous reptiles I'm quoting
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so the racism and sexism with the curse
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of Athena upon her she turned into stone
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whomever she gazed upon till at last
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after a life of nameless misery
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deliverance came to her in the shape of
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death and at the hands of Perseus so you
00:21:35
may know Perseus let's go to Ovid again
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and go to Perseus telling his story at
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his wedding his story of the killing of
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Medusa one of the dinner dinner
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companions at the Ethiopian wedding of
00:21:56
Perseus and Andromeda the story
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continues in Perseus ends up rescuing
00:22:01
and Mary
00:22:01
and drama them asked in turn now valiant
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Perseus pray tell the story of the deed
00:22:08
that all may know what the arts and
00:22:11
power prevailed when you struck off the
00:22:13
serpent covered head you've been in this
00:22:16
like at the bar right or a wedding but
00:22:20
mostly at the bar we like to tell us
00:22:23
about this time you know that time there
00:22:27
is continued Perseus at the house of a
00:22:30
gun or there's a spot beneath cold atlas
00:22:32
we're in the bulwarks of enormous
00:22:35
strength atlas who's holding up the
00:22:37
world to guard its rocky entrance about
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two sisters the grey eye
00:22:42
borne of forces they were want to share
00:22:46
in turn a single eye as it passed
00:22:50
between them there's a great image isn't
00:22:52
it there's just one eye and they have to
00:22:55
share it so they pass it around by this
00:22:59
craft I got possession of when one
00:23:03
handed it to the other I put forth my
00:23:05
hand and took it as it passed between
00:23:07
them okay well that's not very heroic
00:23:10
then so now he can see he can see is
00:23:13
further than any other human then far
00:23:18
remote through the rocky path less
00:23:19
Craigs and over the wild hills that
00:23:22
bristled with great woods
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I then survived to where the Gorgon
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dwelt she has two sisters Medusa along
00:23:30
the way and in fields by the roads I saw
00:23:33
on all sides men and animals like
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statues turned to flinty stone at the
00:23:38
sight of dread Medusa's vision
00:23:40
nevertheless reflected on the brazen
00:23:44
shield so there's a shield that Athena
00:23:47
makes for him and there's great drama
00:23:50
about it all and he looks at her through
00:23:54
the shield right so it's interesting
00:23:57
resonance with Athena okay so he doesn't
00:24:01
look directly at her he looks at her
00:24:03
reflection was think about that I so in
00:24:09
the brace and shield I bore upon my left
00:24:11
eye oh sorry
00:24:12
on his left I saw her horrid face when
00:24:17
she was helpless in the power of sleep
00:24:19
and even her serpent hair was slumber
00:24:22
bound I struck and took her head shear
00:24:27
from the neck to winged Pegasus the
00:24:32
blood gave birth so the blood spurts out
00:24:34
of Medusa's neck and Pegasus the winged
00:24:38
horse is born what okay and his brother
00:24:45
Chris Oh Lord who's also a we need
00:24:48
human-like figure twins of rapid wing so
00:24:55
did he speak but he rides Pegasus away
00:24:58
so I guess that's part of what that's
00:24:59
about
00:25:00
so did he speak and truly told besides
00:25:03
the perils of his journey arduous and
00:25:05
long he told of seas and lands that far
00:25:07
beneath him he had seen and of the stars
00:25:10
that he had touched while on the waving
00:25:14
wings of pegasus okay that's the myth
00:25:19
she wants to engage 6uu and it's called
00:25:23
the laugh of the medusa let's see how
00:25:26
she gets there she says I shall this is
00:25:31
right at the beginning I shall speak
00:25:33
about women's riding okay it's gonna be
00:25:36
about women's writing X right or right
00:25:40
woman must write herself must write
00:25:44
about women and bring women to writing
00:25:47
remember God is writing from which they
00:25:50
have been driven away as violently
00:25:52
violently as from their bodies for the
00:25:55
same reasons by the same law with the
00:25:57
same fatal goal woman must put herself
00:26:00
into the text as into the world and into
00:26:04
history by her own movement by writing I
00:26:10
write this as a woman
00:26:12
toward women
00:26:15
when I say woman speaking of woman in
00:26:18
her inevitable struggle against
00:26:20
convention and of a universal woman
00:26:23
subject who must bring women to their
00:26:25
senses and to their meaning in history
00:26:27
but first it must be said that in spite
00:26:30
of the enormity of the repression that
00:26:32
has kept women in the dark that dark
00:26:35
which people have been trying to make
00:26:37
them accept as their attribute there is
00:26:41
at this time no general woman no typical
00:26:45
woman this is an important move because
00:26:50
in Simone de Beauvoir and other famous
00:26:54
French philosopher female French
00:26:57
philosopher wrote the second sex and it
00:27:00
was basically an essentialist text that
00:27:03
woman is woman because of her biological
00:27:06
difference from from men this is a
00:27:10
different thing there is no general
00:27:12
woman no one typical woman what they
00:27:16
have in common I will say what strikes
00:27:19
me is the infinite richness of their
00:27:23
individual constitutions what you're
00:27:27
supposed to be talking about vaginas
00:27:29
here and right not constitutions
00:27:33
individual what Freud is gone he is
00:27:36
nowhere to be actually he's still here
00:27:38
but we'll we'll get back to him
00:27:41
you can't talk about a female sex
00:27:43
sexuality uniform homogenious
00:27:46
classifiable in in two codes anymore
00:27:49
than you can talk about one unconscious
00:27:51
resembling another woman's imaginary is
00:27:56
inexhaustible like music painting and
00:27:58
writing there stream of phantasms is
00:28:01
incredible and apparently she sick - met
00:28:06
a woman who really affected her greatly
00:28:12
and I'll just let her speak I've been
00:28:16
amazed more than once by a description
00:28:18
of a woman by a description a woman gave
00:28:21
me of a world all her own which she had
00:28:24
been secretly haunting since
00:28:26
a world of searching the elaboration of
00:28:30
a knowledge on the basis of a systematic
00:28:33
experimentation with bodily functions a
00:28:38
passionate and precise interrogation of
00:28:42
her of her Erato Jannetty a creation of
00:28:47
her errata sysm this practice
00:28:49
extraordinarily rich and inventive in
00:28:53
particular as concerns masturbation is
00:28:56
prolonged or accompanied by a production
00:28:58
of forms a veritable aesthetic activity
00:29:03
each stage of Rapture inscribing a
00:29:06
resonant vision a composition something
00:29:09
beautiful Beauty will no longer be
00:29:12
forbidden ok so that's as good a
00:29:16
description as you'll get X richer or
00:29:19
feminine of writing the woman's the
00:29:22
woman's body notice that it's not just
00:29:25
it begins or at least part of its
00:29:29
masturbation but it's its auto-erotic
00:29:33
ism that gives birth to forms that gives
00:29:36
birth to and this gives birth is the
00:29:38
right metaphor to to aesthetic forms to
00:29:42
beauty and it's notice that she says
00:29:47
secretly haunting since early childhood
00:29:50
this woman had so it starts early
00:29:54
remember when we were talking about
00:29:55
Carol Gilligan and how she noticed that
00:29:57
there was a moment when little girls
00:29:59
became became aware of the patriarchy
00:30:02
and started in literally embedding it
00:30:05
into their psyches to survive secretly
00:30:09
haunting since childhood now women
00:30:13
returned from afar from always from
00:30:16
without from the heath where the witches
00:30:19
are kept alive from below from beyond
00:30:23
culture from their childhood again
00:30:26
childhood which men have been trying
00:30:28
desperately to make them forget
00:30:31
condemning it to eternal rest the little
00:30:35
girls in their ill-mannered bodies
00:30:37
emerge well preserved
00:30:40
tact unto themselves in the mirror
00:30:42
fridge if I'd but they are ever see the
00:30:46
underneath what an effort it takes
00:30:49
there's no end to it
00:30:51
for the sex cups to bar they're
00:30:53
threatening return remember that she's
00:30:56
talking about little girls right so this
00:30:59
is not something pornographic or
00:31:03
inappropriate in any way this is
00:31:05
something mythological this is the
00:31:08
feminine such a display of forces on
00:31:11
both sides that the struggle has for
00:31:13
centuries been immobilized in the
00:31:16
trembling equilibrium of a deadlock I
00:31:20
wish that woman would write and proclaim
00:31:25
this unique Empire this whole world so
00:31:29
that other women other unacknowledged
00:31:31
sovereigns might exclaim I to overflow
00:31:37
my desires have invented new desires my
00:31:42
body knows unheard-of songs
00:31:44
time and again I too have felt so full
00:31:47
of luminous torrents that I can burst
00:31:50
burst with forms much more beautiful
00:31:53
than those which are put up in frames
00:31:54
and sold for a fortune and I too said
00:31:57
nothing showed nothing I didn't open my
00:32:01
mouth I didn't repaint my half of the
00:32:04
world I was ashamed I was afraid and I
00:32:07
swallowed my shame in my fear and said
00:32:10
to myself you're mad what's the meaning
00:32:13
of these waves these floods these
00:32:15
outbursts where is the abulia an
00:32:17
infinite woman who hasn't been ashamed
00:32:20
of her strength who's surprised and
00:32:22
horrified by the fantastic torment of
00:32:25
her drives hasn't accused herself of
00:32:28
being a monster who feeling a funny
00:32:31
desire stirring inside her hasn't
00:32:34
thought that she was sick well her
00:32:37
shameful sickness is that she resists
00:32:40
death that she makes trouble
00:32:45
and why don't you write she says right
00:32:49
writing is for you you are for you your
00:32:52
body is yours take it I know why you
00:32:56
haven't written and why I didn't write
00:32:59
before the age of 27 because writing is
00:33:03
at once too high too great for you women
00:33:07
it's reserved for the great that is for
00:33:09
the great men and your writing is silly
00:33:13
besides you've written a little but in
00:33:16
secret and it wasn't that good because
00:33:19
it wasn't secret and because you
00:33:21
punished yourself for writing because
00:33:23
you didn't go all the way or because you
00:33:25
wrote irresistibly as when we would
00:33:27
masturbate in secret not to go further
00:33:30
but to attenuate the tension just a bit
00:33:33
just enough to take the edge off and
00:33:36
then as soon as we come we go and make
00:33:40
ourselves feel guilty so as to be
00:33:43
forgiven or to forget or to bury it
00:33:46
until the next time and here she makes
00:33:51
up the new word and you can see this as
00:33:54
a derivation of derrida's notion near
00:33:58
the entire nearly the entire history of
00:34:00
writing is confounded with the history
00:34:04
of reason let me say that again
00:34:06
the history of writing is confounded
00:34:09
with the history of reason you cannot
00:34:11
separate the two in Western culture
00:34:15
because they are the same you can of
00:34:17
course separate the two and that's what
00:34:19
she's trying to do here reason is it
00:34:25
wants the effect the support and one of
00:34:27
the privileged alibis it has been one
00:34:30
with the phallocentric to tradition it
00:34:33
is indeed the same self admiring
00:34:34
self-stimulating self-congratulatory
00:34:37
fallow centrism so Derrida created the
00:34:42
concept called logo centrism which is
00:34:45
the sense in Western culture of as from
00:34:48
the Greek word Lagos which means well
00:34:51
means a lot of things but it means word
00:34:53
and it's generally thought to mean
00:34:57
spoken word
00:34:58
and how in Western culture we privilege
00:35:02
the spoken word not privileged we have
00:35:05
seen the spoken word as older and more
00:35:08
therefore more authentic than the
00:35:10
written word Derrida wants to overturn
00:35:12
that distinction but succeed comes along
00:35:15
and says it's not just logos interests
00:35:18
it's not just this domination by the
00:35:21
word it's by the phallus as well it's by
00:35:25
the masculine power which belongs to
00:35:27
writing
00:35:28
she says writing and reason and
00:35:33
patriarchy they all go together
00:35:36
she says write yourself instead she says
00:35:40
your body must be heard this is so
00:35:43
important for her your body must be
00:35:45
heard and remember this this hits on all
00:35:48
the major fault lines of Western thought
00:35:52
your body must be heard your body no no
00:35:54
we want to hear from your mind
00:35:57
we've denigrated the body I hate this
00:36:01
race but since Plato I hate it because
00:36:04
it gets you so much because it's right
00:36:06
most the time since Plato this all
00:36:08
happened but of course we know Descartes
00:36:10
to who in trying to find what's true
00:36:14
first discovered his mind
00:36:16
and lastly discovered his body do you
00:36:22
know this cogito ergo soon I won't put
00:36:25
you through it but basically he's
00:36:27
determined to find what's true and he
00:36:28
decides that the only thing he knows for
00:36:31
sure that is true because he can't trust
00:36:33
his senses because you know what at one
00:36:35
point a candle is hard and cold and
00:36:37
another point it's hot and wet and how's
00:36:40
that the same thing that can't be right
00:36:42
all I know he says is that I am sitting
00:36:46
here wondering what I know
00:36:48
cogito ergo soon I think therefore I am
00:36:54
now listen to succeed right your body
00:36:58
your body must be heard she says that's
00:37:01
where you start
00:37:02
that's where women start with the body
00:37:04
because with the body being denied being
00:37:08
defiled in Western culture it is also as
00:37:12
she ate it with women and this goes for
00:37:15
theology and philosophy Eve all this
00:37:18
only then if you write your body will
00:37:23
the immense resources of the unconscious
00:37:25
unconscious springs forth our naphtha
00:37:29
will spread throughout the world without
00:37:31
dollars black or gold non assessed
00:37:33
values that will change the rules of the
00:37:35
old game to write an act which will not
00:37:43
only realize the D censored relation of
00:37:46
a woman to her sexuality to her womanly
00:37:48
being giving her access to her native
00:37:51
strength it will give her back her goods
00:37:54
her pleasures or her organs her immense
00:37:58
bodily territories which have been kept
00:38:00
under seal territories right there it is
00:38:04
against the body as a whole world
00:38:06
unknown to men and unknown to most women
00:38:10
even though they contain it it will tear
00:38:14
her away from the superego eyes
00:38:16
structure there's Freud I told you he
00:38:19
was still lurking around it will tear
00:38:22
her away from the super-ego right the
00:38:25
the super-ego who writ large in culture
00:38:27
well super-ego his sculpture pretty much
00:38:29
and which she has always occupied the
00:38:31
place reserved for the guilty my guilty
00:38:36
of everything women guilty at every turn
00:38:40
for having desires or for not having any
00:38:44
for being frigid what for being too hot
00:38:48
but for not being both at once for being
00:38:52
too motherly and not motherly enough for
00:38:55
having children for not having children
00:38:57
for nursing and for not nursing this
00:39:02
will riding her body will tear her away
00:39:04
by means of this research into her body
00:39:08
this job of analysis and illumination
00:39:10
this emancipation of the marvelous text
00:39:13
of herself that she must urgently learn
00:39:16
to speak a woman without a body dumb
00:39:19
blind can't possibly be a good fighter
00:39:22
she has reduced to be being the servant
00:39:25
the militant male his shadow we must
00:39:29
kill the false woman who is preventing
00:39:30
the live one from breathing inscribe the
00:39:33
breath of the whole woman again I'm just
00:39:38
gonna read her to you pretty much
00:39:40
because she doesn't need me to speak for
00:39:42
her
00:39:43
it's pretty powerful stuff it is time
00:39:47
for women to start scoring their feats
00:39:49
in written and oral language every woman
00:39:55
has known the torment of getting up to
00:39:57
speak never be interested to hear what
00:40:00
some of you think of this every woman
00:40:02
has known the torment of getting up to
00:40:04
speak her heart racing at times entirely
00:40:06
lost for words ground language slipping
00:40:09
away
00:40:10
that's how daring a feat how great a
00:40:12
transgression it is for one to speak
00:40:15
even just to open her mouth in public a
00:40:18
double distress because yet even if she
00:40:22
transgresses her words will almost
00:40:24
always fall upon the death male ear
00:40:26
which hears in language only that which
00:40:29
speaks in the masculine yep yep it is by
00:40:35
writing from and toward women and by
00:40:38
taking up the challenge of speech which
00:40:40
has been governed by the phallus that
00:40:42
women will confirm women in a place
00:40:44
other than that which is reserved in and
00:40:46
by the symbolic she's getting into
00:40:48
Jacques Lacan here and I'm not going to
00:40:50
inflict that post-structuralist well you
00:40:55
can if you want me right okay that is a
00:40:58
place other Elysee reserved Anand by the
00:41:01
symbolic so all right I'm gonna afflict
00:41:03
him on you a little bit so for Lacan he
00:41:07
kind of takes Freud's tripartite nature
00:41:12
the psyche and changes and he said the
00:41:14
because of the the real and the
00:41:16
imaginary in the symbolic and the real
00:41:19
is the mother's body and the symbolic
00:41:23
then comes next since involves language
00:41:25
of course and then the imaginary was is
00:41:27
that which is perhaps beyond language
00:41:29
I'm I think that's right the point being
00:41:32
that he says that women are not
00:41:35
constrained by
00:41:39
by the by the gravity by the rules of
00:41:43
the center of the psyche because they
00:41:46
are on the edges they are closer to the
00:41:49
real to the mother's body
00:41:51
this is sixes like yes that's right and
00:41:54
that means we are free to write the body
00:41:56
without these constraints of the phallus
00:41:59
all right that wasn't too painful okay
00:42:04
women should break out of the snare of
00:42:06
silence
00:42:07
they shouldn't be conned into accepting
00:42:09
a domain which is the margin the margin
00:42:12
or the harem this is amazing in women's
00:42:20
speech as in their writing that element
00:42:24
which never stops resonating which once
00:42:27
we've been permeated by it profoundly
00:42:29
and imperceptibly touched by it retains
00:42:33
the power of moving us that element is
00:42:36
song first music from the first voice of
00:42:41
love which is alive and every woman why
00:42:44
is this privileged relationship with the
00:42:46
voice because no woman stockpiles as
00:42:51
many defenses for countering the drives
00:42:53
as does a man you don't build walls
00:42:57
around yourself you don't for go
00:43:00
pleasure as wisely as he even if phallic
00:43:05
mystification has generally contaminated
00:43:07
good relationships a woman is never far
00:43:10
from mother there is always within her
00:43:13
at least a little of that mother's milk
00:43:16
she writes in white ink she writes in
00:43:21
white ink
00:43:25
texts and again for Derrida m-46 Sood
00:43:30
text is the world
00:43:32
Derrida said there is no outside text
00:43:36
and I don't want to get into that unless
00:43:39
you want to get into it but so the text
00:43:41
is everything for six ooh that's why you
00:43:44
must write as a woman you must write you
00:43:47
must enter this discourse but you must
00:43:50
enter it with your body speaking your
00:43:52
body text my body shot through with
00:43:56
streams of song I don't mean the
00:43:59
overbearing clutching mother but rather
00:44:01
what touches you
00:44:03
the equipoise that affects you fills
00:44:05
your breasts with an urge to come to
00:44:07
language and launches your force the
00:44:10
rhythm that lacks you the rhythm that
00:44:13
laughs you do you know that that rhythm
00:44:18
that comes like from behind you and then
00:44:20
comes through you and laughs through you
00:44:23
I love that the intimate recipient who
00:44:26
makes all metaphors possible and desire
00:44:29
desirable body no bore no more
00:44:34
describable than God the soul or the
00:44:36
other body that part of you that leaves
00:44:40
the space between yourself and urges you
00:44:43
to inscribe and language your woman's
00:44:45
style in women there is always more or
00:44:48
less of the mother who makes everything
00:44:50
all right who nourishes and who stands
00:44:53
up against separation a force that will
00:44:57
not be cut off that will knock the wind
00:44:59
out of the codes we will rethink
00:45:03
womankind beginning with every form and
00:45:06
every period of her body because she
00:45:11
arrives vibrant over and again we are at
00:45:14
the beginning of a new history or rather
00:45:16
a process of becoming in which several
00:45:20
histories interact with one another as
00:45:22
subject for history woman always occurs
00:45:24
simultaneously in several places I love
00:45:28
this line woman unthink s-- the unifying
00:45:32
regulating history that homogenized and
00:45:36
anoles forces she uh thinks all that
00:45:39
this deconstruction hurting
00:45:44
contradictions into a single battlefield
00:45:48
hurting contradictions into a single
00:45:50
Bell I love it in woman personal history
00:45:53
blends together with the history of all
00:45:55
women as well as national and world
00:45:57
history as a militant she's an integral
00:46:00
part of all Liberation's she must be
00:46:03
farsighted not limited to a blow-by-blow
00:46:05
interaction she foresees that her
00:46:08
Liberation will do more than modify
00:46:11
power relations or toss the ball over to
00:46:14
the other camp it's so important
00:46:18
liberation will do more than modify
00:46:22
power relations it will do more than
00:46:25
that goddess knows that would be enough
00:46:28
or toss the ball over to the other camp
00:46:31
she will bring about a mutation in human
00:46:34
relations and thought in all praxis hers
00:46:38
is not simply a class struggle but she
00:46:41
carries forward into a much vaster
00:46:42
movement not that in order to be a woman
00:46:45
in struggle you have to leave this class
00:46:48
struggle or repudiate it but you have to
00:46:50
split it open spread it out push it
00:46:53
forward fill it with the fundamental
00:46:55
struggle so as to prevent the class
00:46:57
struggle or any other struggle for
00:46:59
liberation of a class or a people from
00:47:02
operating itself as a form of repression
00:47:06
pretext for postponing the inevitable
00:47:08
the staggering alteration in power
00:47:11
relations and in production of
00:47:13
individuality the new history is coming
00:47:17
it's not a dream though it does extend
00:47:21
beyond men's imagination and for good
00:47:25
reason it's going to deprive them of
00:47:28
their conceptual Orthopaedic beginning
00:47:34
okay yep
00:47:35
I'm not doing this justice let me try it
00:47:38
again
00:47:39
the new history is coming it's not a
00:47:43
dream though it does extend beyond men's
00:47:45
imagination and for good
00:47:47
is going to deprive them of their
00:47:49
conceptual Orthopaedic beginning with
00:47:52
the destruction of their enticement
00:47:55
machine I'm not saying anything the
00:48:05
destruction of men's enticement machine
00:48:14
okay they riveted us he or she is going
00:48:20
back to myth they rivet us riveted us
00:48:23
between two horrifying myths between the
00:48:26
abyss that would be enough to set half
00:48:29
the world to set half the world alight
00:48:33
and it's still going on for the fallow
00:48:36
ghost centric sublation its militant
00:48:39
regenerating the old patterns anchored
00:48:42
in the castration they haven't changed a
00:48:44
thing
00:48:44
they theorized it for reality let the
00:48:48
priests trim what are the ways to wisdom
00:48:55
here well one of the things that I think
00:48:59
is amazing about what she's done here is
00:49:02
she's taken one of the most horrific
00:49:03
myths in our canon and she has turned it
00:49:09
into its opposite it's the laugh of the
00:49:13
Medusa laughs nowhere in any story does
00:49:18
Medusa laugh nor does she have anything
00:49:20
to laugh about
00:49:21
until 6u arrives you must must ride oh
00:49:27
she says we must right over the Medusa
00:49:30
after there's the Medusa before the
00:49:33
protectress The Guardian and then
00:49:36
there's the Medusa after who's too
00:49:38
horrid to look upon so horrid that she
00:49:42
freezes men then makes them in stone we
00:49:47
must write over she says that men just
00:49:49
write over it
00:49:50
Palin says you know what a palimpsest is
00:49:53
I love that yeah it's where you just
00:49:55
write over other writing and that's a
00:49:58
very dominant metaphor and
00:49:59
post-structuralist thought just write
00:50:01
over it right over that old myth and
00:50:04
that's exactly what she did and here we
00:50:06
are reading it instead right her body
00:50:10
right Medusa's body the intact body
00:50:13
before the decapitation
00:50:18
and that critter or feminine you heard
00:50:21
it yeah you someone asked you in a bar
00:50:23
what is this woman's writing the body
00:50:26
now you know and you can explain it to
00:50:28
them over some single malt liquor true
00:50:34
or feminine is is it's hard to say what
00:50:38
it looks like because it's really what
00:50:39
it sounds like it's not visually
00:50:43
dominate you heard it's about song and
00:50:46
it comes out of the body and waves not
00:50:49
in lines right and so she wants
00:50:53
metaphors of slow metaphors that are
00:50:57
open and changing and dynamic not static
00:51:01
she wants milk white ink right that you
00:51:08
can't see you can't see white ink unless
00:51:11
you know how to look maybe you smell it
00:51:16
maybe you taste it right you eggs you
00:51:20
can't experience it it's a song this
00:51:24
writing of the body something with
00:51:27
rhythm and pulse but no words something
00:51:29
connected with bodies and the bodies
00:51:31
beats and rhythms but not with
00:51:33
representational language I think we
00:51:39
know her and I'll end with my favorite
00:51:44
line from the essay you only have to
00:51:48
look at the Medusa's straight on to see
00:51:52
her don't look in the reflection of your
00:51:54
shield look at her straight on and she's
00:51:58
not deadly she's beautiful and she's
00:52:02
laughing thank you
00:52:07
[Applause]
