TY - JOUR

T1 - Against yin-yang

T2 - the dao of feminist universalism

AU - Saldanha, Arun

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Forcing some uneasy encounters between the universalizing feminism of Irigaray, Lacan’s concept of sexuation, the communism of Badiou and Žižek, and Daoism, this article argues that feminism is not a kind of identity politics but an entirely necessary accompaniment to any radical, that is, planetary, project of emancipation. The ancient Chinese dialectic of yin-yang, however, as implicitly discernible in Irigaray, has a complementary and harmonious conception of the sexual binary. Instead, it is the more abstract and paradoxical versions of Daoist ontology that could inspire the kind of subversive universalism capable of overthrowing patriarchal world-capitalism, which is, as we know, currently as much US- as China-made.

AB - Forcing some uneasy encounters between the universalizing feminism of Irigaray, Lacan’s concept of sexuation, the communism of Badiou and Žižek, and Daoism, this article argues that feminism is not a kind of identity politics but an entirely necessary accompaniment to any radical, that is, planetary, project of emancipation. The ancient Chinese dialectic of yin-yang, however, as implicitly discernible in Irigaray, has a complementary and harmonious conception of the sexual binary. Instead, it is the more abstract and paradoxical versions of Daoist ontology that could inspire the kind of subversive universalism capable of overthrowing patriarchal world-capitalism, which is, as we know, currently as much US- as China-made.

KW - sexual difference

KW - feminist theory

KW - universalism

KW - daoism

KW - communism

KW - psychoanalytic theory

U2 - 10.1080/0969725X.2012.701055

DO - 10.1080/0969725X.2012.701055

M3 - Journal article

VL - 17

SP - 145

EP - 168

JO - Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities

JF - Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities

SN - 0969-725X

IS - 2

ER -