Claire Colebrook - Gender (Transitions)

G e n d e r

transitions

General Editor: Julian Wolfreys

Published Titles

BATAILLE Fred Botting and Scott Wilson

NEW HISTORICISM AND CULTURAL MATERIALISM John Brannigan GENDER Claire Colebrook

POSTMODERN NARRATIVE THEORY Mark Currie

FORMALIST CRITICISM AND READER-RESPONSE THEORY

Todd F. Davis and Kenneth Womack

IDEOLOGY James M. Decker

QUEER THEORIES Donald E. Hall

MARXIST LITERARY AND CULTURAL THEORIES Moyra Haslett LOUIS ALTHUSSER Warren Montag

RACE Brian Niro

JACQUES LACAN Jean-Michel Rabat

LITERARY FEMINISMS Ruth Robbins

DECONSTRUCTIONDERRIDA Julian Wolfreys

ORWELL TO THE PRESENT: LITERATURE IN ENGLAND, 19452000

John Brannigan

FROM CHAUCER TO SHAKESPEARE, 13371580 SunHee Kim Gertz MODERNISM, 19101945 Jane Goldman

POPE TO BURNEY, 17141779 Moyra Haslett

PATER TO FORSTER, 18731924 Ruth Robbins

BURKE TO BYRON, BARBAULD TO BAILLIE, 17901830 Jane Stabler FROM MILTON TO POPE, 16501720 Kay Gilliland Stevenson SIDNEY TO MILTON, 15801660 Marion Wynne-Davies Forthcoming Titles

TERRY EAGLETON David Alderson

JULIA KRISTEVA AND LITERARY THEORY Megan Becker-Leckrone NATIONAL IDENTITY John Brannigan

HL NE CIXOUS: WRITING AND SEXUAL DIFFERENCE Abigail Bray HOMI BHABHA Eleanor Byrne

POSTMODERNISMPOSTMODERNITY Martin McQuillan ROLAND BARTHES Martin McQuillan

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERATURE Nicholas Rand SUBJECTIVITY Ruth Robbins

POSTCOLONIAL THEORY Malini Johan Schueller TRANSGRESSION Julian Wolfreys

DICKENS TO HARDY, 18371884 Julian Wolfreys Transitions

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transitions

G e n d e r

Claire Colebrook

Claire Colebrook 2004

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2004 by

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010

Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martins Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.

Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.

ISBN 0333994574 hardback

ISBN 0333994582 paperback

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Colebrook, Claire.

Gender / Claire Colebrook.

p.

cm. (Transitions)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0333994574 (cloth) ISBN 0333994582 (pbk.) 1. Feminist theory.

2. Gender identity.

3. SexPhilosophy.

4. Sexual

orientation.

5. Gender identity in literature.

I. Title.

II. Transitions

(Palgrave Macmillan (Firm))

HQ1190.C653 2004

305.4201dc21

2003054922

Printed in China

C o n t e n t s

General Editors Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

ix

1. Gender before Modernity

Gender and polarity

Nature/culture: Sex/gender

What sort of difference is gender difference?

Essence and gender

The gender of souls

Matter and the realisation of gender

Gender without sex

A Midsummer Nights Dream

2. Gender as Form and the Masculinity of Reason 40

The gender of form and reason

Deconstruction

Binaries of reason and gender: Genevieve Lloyd 58

Paradise Lost

3. Modernity and the Materiality of Gender 76

Sex and matter: Modern empiricism and liberalism 76

Third-wave feminism: Reality and essence 82

Subjectivity, ideas and experience

Man and modern subjectivity

Modern science and mathematics

Patriarchy

Patriarchy and the sexual contract: Carole Pateman 109

4. Sex without Gender

First-wave feminism and the sex/gender distinction 117

Enlightenment feminism

Marriage and gender harmony

v

v i

C o n t e n t s

Second-wave feminism and difference

Psychoanalytic feminism

The Oedipal production of gender

5. Beyond Sex and Gender

Third-wave feminism

Difference before sex and gender

Lacan and the subject of signification

Levi-Strauss and the exchange of women

6. Sexual Difference and Embodiment

Lacan, negativity and desire

The body

Luce Irigaray and the positive feminine 198

7. Sexuality and Queer Theory

Michel Foucault and the history of sexuality 206

Performativity

Volatile bodies

Queer theory and the critique of gender: Butler, Sedgwick, Edelman and Bersani

Moira Gatens and the critique of gender 234

Conclusion: Reading Gender

Frankenstein

First-wave feminist and humanist reading 239

Second-wave or radical feminist readings 240

Third-wave feminist readings

Reading gender

Annotated Bibliography

Bibliography

Index

G e n e r a l E d i t o r s P r e f a c e Transitions: transition-em, n. of action. 1. A passing or passage from one condition, action or (rarely) place, to another. 2. Passage in thought, speech, or writing, from one subject to another. 3. a. The passing from one note to another b. The passing from one key to another, modulation. 4. The passage from an earlier to a later stage of development or formation... change from an earlier style to a later; a style of intermediate or mixed character... the historical passage of language from one well-defined stage to another.

The aim of Transitions is to explore passages and movements in critical thought, and in the development of literary and cultural interpretation. This series also seeks to examine the possibilities for reading, analysis, and other critical engagements which the very idea of transition makes possible. The writers in this series unfold the movements and modulations of critical thinking over the last generation, from the first emergences of what is now recognised as literary theory. They examine as well how the transitional nature of theoretical and critical thinking is still very much in operation, guaranteed by the hybridity and heterogeneity of the field of literary studies. The authors in the series share the common understanding that, now more than ever, critical thought is both in a state of transition and can best be defined by developing for the student reader an understanding of this protean quality.