The Program in Hellenic Studies and the Center for French and Francophone Studies, Columbia University present:
Luce Irigaray and 'the Greeks': Genealogies of Re-writing
Friday-Sunday, October 1-3, 2004
The conference explores the ways in which Luce Irigaray's re-writing of Ancient Greek texts not only has marked contemporary criticism but also has transformed the body of Western discourse. Luce Irigaray, feminist philosopher and rebel Lacanian, pushes against the limits of Logos by not only revealing the blind spots that structure classic discourse, but also by unsettling its impulse to reduce difference. But are the texts of the Fathers undermined by Irigaray's mimetic strategies of re-writing? Are they given a new authoritative voice? What kinds of questions about positionality, representation, language, and politics does the Irigarayan mimesis raise? In the context of innovative re-readings of classic texts in the light of psychoanalytic feminism, the appellation "the Greeks" - stereotypically invoked to denote "ancient Greek civilization" - is used critically. What are the theoretical, cultural, and political implications of the monologic emphasis on the Greek classical past? How can we trace its routes of re-writing and translatability into various contemporary identities? How does a de-authorization of the priority of "the classical" motivate new critical treatments of the canon of the "West"?
Co-Sponsors:
Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Center for Comparative Literature and Society with the support of the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University and the Department of Women's Studies and the Barnard Center for Research on Women at Barnard College.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON OCTOBER 1
Buell Hall, East Gallery, Maison Française
3:00 pm Welcome
Elena Tzelepis (Hellenic Studies, Columbia University)
Karen Van Dyck (Hellenic Studies, Columbia University)
Opening Remarks
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Comparative Literature & Society, Columbia University)
Receiving Luce Irigaray: Intellectual Itineraries, Historical Contexts
Chair: Madeleine Dobie (French, Columbia University)
Tina Chanter (Philosophy, DePaul University)
Elizabeth Weed (Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University)
Coffee Break
4:45- 6:30 pm - Luce Irigaray's Critical Mimesis: Refiguring the Western Canon of Representation from Plato to Lacan
Chair: Natalie B. Kampen (Women's Studies, Barnard College)
Anne-Emmanuelle Berger (Romance Studies, Cornell University)
Textiles that Matter: Irigaray and Veils
Dianne Chisholm (English, University of Alberta)
Irigaray's Mimesis and the Eurydice Projects of Kathy Acker and Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger
Discussant: Elizabeth Grosz (Women's Studies, Rutgers University)
SATURDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 2
Buell Hall, East Gallery, Maison Française
9:00 Coffee and Registration
9:30 am - Toward a New Ethics of Sexual Difference: Unraveling Transatlantic Feminisms
Chair: Lila Abu-Lughod (Anthropology, Columbia University)
Gayle Salamon (Women's Studies, UC at Berkeley)
Sameness, Alterity, Flesh
Judith Still (French, University of Nottingham)
Hospitality and Sexual Difference: From Homer to Luce Irigaray
Eleni Varikas (Political Science, University of Paris 8)
Who Cares About the Greeks? Uses and Misuses of Tradition in a Feminist Rethinking of Difference and Plurality
Discussant: Drucilla Cornell (Political Science, Rutgers University)
Lunch Break
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 2
Buell Hall, East Gallery, Maison Française
2:00 pm - Engaging with and Disengaging from the Ancient Greek Traditions of Philosophy, Mythology, and Tragedy
Chair: Helene Foley (Classics, Barnard College)
Lynne Huffer (French and Women and Gender Studies, Rice University)
Ethical Poiesis in Irigaray and Foucault
Gail Schwab (French, Hofstra University)
Mothers, Sisters, and Daughters: Luce Irigaray and the Female Genealogical Link in the Stories of the Greeks
Discussant: Claudia Baracchi (Philosophy, New School for Social Research)
Coffee Break
4:00 pm - Ambiguous Antigones: Between the Right to Affect and the Sovereignty of the Law
Chair: Alice Crary (Philosophy, New School for Social Research)
Athena Athanasiou (Anthropology, Panteion University, Greece)
Mourning (as) Woman: Irony, Catachresis and the Boundaries of the Political
Mary Beth Mader (Philosophy, University of Memphis)
Antigone and the Ethics of Kinship
Charles Shepherdson (English, SUNY Albany)
Gender and Genre: Antigone and the Question of Tragedy
Discussant: Elizabeth Povinelli (Anthropology, Columbia University)
SUNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 3
Buell Hall, East Gallery, Maison Française
9:00 am - Coffee and Registration
9:30 am - From Ancient Greek Theoria to Contemporary Thought: The Irigaray Effect and its Political Futures
Chair: Lydia Goehr (Philosophy, Columbia University)
Laine Harrington (Women's Studies, UC at Berkeley)
'Raising Love Up to the Word': Re-writing God as 'other' through Irigarayan Style
Penelope Deutscher (Philosophy, Northwestern University
Inhospitable Feminism: Irigaray's Gestures of Hospitality and Impossibility
Ewa Ziarek (Comparative Literature, SUNY Buffalo)
Irigaray, Adorno and the Work of the Negative
Discussant: Sylvère Lotringer (French, Columbia University)
Coffee Break
12:00 - Closing Lecture
Luce Irigaray (CNRS) The Return
Organized by Elena Tzelepis, Conference Chair, Hellenic Studies, Columbia University; and Athena Athanasiou, Social Anthropology, Panteion University, Athens, Greece with Eric W. Ormsby, Director Emeritus, Maison Française, Columbia University and the special assistance of Karen Van Dyck, Hellenic Studies, Columbia University, Madeleine Dobie, French, Columbia University and Vangelis Calotychos, Hellenic Studies, Columbia University.
Major funding provided by the Sterling Currier Fund, the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation; and the Greek Ministry of Economy and Finance.