Braidotti Rosi. - Nomadic Subjects

nomadic subjects

gender and culture

Gender and Culture

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Nancy K. Miller and Victoria Rosner, Series Editors

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The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture
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George Sand and Idealism
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Becoming a Heroine: Reading About Women in Novels
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Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory
Rosi Braidotti

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nomadic subjects

embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory

SECOND EDITION

rosi braidotti

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright 2011 Columbia University Press

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-51526-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Braidotti, Rosi.

Nomadic subjects: embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory / Rosi Braidotti.2nd ed.

p. cm.(Gender and culture)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-231-15388-1 (cloth: alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-231-15389-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Feminist theory. 2. Sex differences. 3. BodySocial aspects. I. Title. II. Title: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory. III. Series.

HQ1190.B74 2011

305.4201dc22 2010035487

A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at .

Contents

M y heartfelt gratitude goes primarily to Jennifer Crewe, my publisher, who instigated this project and supported it throughout. Nancy Miller was enthusiastic and supportive as ever; Elizabeth Weeds insightful comments were most welcome. Thanks also to Claire Colebrook for her inspiration and lucid criticism and to Clare Hemings, Patrick Hanafin, and Lisa Baraiter for their careful reading of my texts. I am very grateful to the dean of my faculty, Wiljan van der Akker, for doing everything in his power to create work conditions conducive to completing this book. I wish to thank many generations of research assistants whose help with bibliographical details and editing was precious: Stephanie Paalvast did an amazing job in the final round, but, before her, Marleen and Pauline Vincenten, Sandra Solomon, Valeska Hovener, Kristl van Eijk, and Eva Midden provided vital assistance. I also profited enormously from the comments and support of former students and younger colleagues: Bolette Blaagaard and Iris van der Tuin, Maayke Botman, Rutvica Andrijasevic, Cecilia Alsberg, Sarah Bracke, Esther Captain and Griet Roets were especially supportive. There are too many graduate students I should thank for the inspiration and the vitality, so I thank them all collectively. A special word of thanks and praise for Esther Rinkens, the executive manager of the Centre for the Humanities, whose efficient management, loyalty, and harmonious disposition created time for my writing, and also to Lianne Toussaint. All my gratitude to Natasha Unkart, my favorite photographer, who designed the stunning cover. To my brother Gus and my sister Gio. For their unfailing enthusiasm.

Special thanks to Anneke Smelik for an amazing life together.

I wish to thank the publishers for granting permission to reprint the following:

Organs Without Bodies in differences, no. 1 (1989): 147161. Translated into Italian: Il corpo come mosaico, Rinascita, no. 10 (January 15, 1990): 6871. Translated into Danish: Organer uden kroppe,