Constituting Feminist Subjects

Description

Kathi Weeks suggests that one of the most important tasks for contemporary feminist theory is to develop theories of the subject that are adequate to feminist politics. Although the 1980s modernist-postmodernist debate put the problem of feminist subjectivity on the agenda, Weeks contends that limited debate now blocks the further development of feminist theory. Both modernists and postmodernists succeeded in making clear the problems of an already constituted, essentialist subject. What remains as an ongoing project, Weeks contends, is creating a theory of the constitution of subjects to account for the processes of social construction. This book presents one such account. Drawing on a number of different theoretical frameworks, including feminist standpoint theory, socialist feminism and poststructuralist thought, as well as theories of peformativity and self-valorisation, the author proposes a nonessential feminist subject, a theory of constituting subjects.

Kathi Weeks is Professor in the Program of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke University. She is the author of The Problem With Work and a co-editor of The Jameson Reader.

Kathi Weeks takes a basic insight-modernist and postmodernist thought are notone thing, they are complex fields with multiple and jostling threads runningthrough them-and she proceeds to follow up and disentangle those threads thatare important for feminism. I really loved reading this book. It is bothcritical and appreciative. It is truly written in what I would call a feministspirit. -- Kathy Ferguson, University of Hawaii