Helene Cixous: Critical Impressions (Lit Book Series Vol. 1)

Adapted from a special issue of "Literature Interpretation Theory", this book explores one of the most significant voices in contemporary literature, approaching Cixous from the perspectives of feminist theory, materialist criticism, biographical criticism and reader-response methodologies. First published in 1999. Each volume in the Lit Book Series will contain a wide range of essays on a particular author, theme or genre. By offering a forum for oftentimes competing, but equally compelling, theoretical points of view within each volume, the editors hope to generate interest, debate, dissent, appreciation and attention for each volume's topic. The Lit Book Series will provide a valuable venue for scholars, writers and general readers to encounter, examine, produce and discuss insightful, sound scholarship about important fields of study. This international collection of essays regards the work of Hélène Cixous with all the complexity that she herself brings to her engagement with literature and psychology. Cixous is well known as an interpreter of Freudian and Lacanian theories, especially those connecting gender and the production of language. She is also a noted writer of fiction and drama as well as a distinguished theorist of literary feminism. Preliminaries......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Introduction to the Series......Page 8 Foreword......Page 9 Acknowledgments......Page 14 1 Life Makes Text from My Body......Page 15 2 Le Père de l’écriture......Page 37 3 The Medusa’s Slip......Page 72 4 Hélène Cixous......Page 90 5 Reading and Writing the Other......Page 106 6 Cixous’ Concept of “Brushing” as a Gift......Page 126 7 The Gift: Hélène Cixous and Jacques Derrida......Page 138 8 Hélène Cixous Names Woman, Mother, Other......Page 155 9 Cixous, Spivak, and Oppositional Theory......Page 179 10 Hélène Cixous: A Space Between......Page 201 11 Hélène Cixous and the Need of Portraying......Page 215 12 Ariane Mnouchkine/Hélène Cixous......Page 240 The Self and The “Other(s)” in Cixous’......Page 262 14 Bringing a Historical Character on Stage......Page 278 15 Men More Than Men......Page 309 16 The Critic as Playwright: Performing Hélène......Page 319 About the Contributors......Page 338 Index......Page 342 Why did Helene Cixous' text La Venue a l'ecriture form 1976 have such echoes, first in France and later in English-speaking countries?