Sexualidad en el debate francés sobre el pañuelo islámico

La disputa acerca del velo sacó a la luz contradicciones latentes en el republicanismo francés. El sistema «tapado» de relaciones de género, que requiere códigos para frenar los peligros sociales de la sexualidad, planteó un inquietante desafío para el sistema «descubierto» en el cual la accesibilidad de la mirada masculina al cuerpo femenino es parte integrante de las interacciones de género que los franceses exaltan. Los principios republicanos de universalidad e igualdad se basan en un individualismo abstracto que afirma la identidad y que tiende a ignorar las diferencias a pesar de que la diferencia sexual frustra la igualdad real. Esta querella sobre el pañuelo desveló diferencias nacionales y sexuales que el republicanismo francés no afronta, incluso permitiendo que el universalismo y la igualdad oculten sus propias contradicciones, contribuyendo así a reafirmar la superioridad frances

Fantasmes du millénaire : le futur du « genre » au XXIe siècle

Le genre est-il encore une « catégorie utile » d’analyse ? Cet article suggère qu’il a perdu son tranchant critique. Non seulement le genre est devenu un moyen banal et routinier de caractériser les différences entre les sexes mais il a également parfois empêché les féministes de s’intéresser aux importantes questions posées par les nouvelles recherches menées dans les domaines de la biologie et de la psychologie. L’auteur ne prétend pas qu’il faille éliminer le genre et les notions qui lui sont associées de notre vocabulaire, tâche non seulement impossible mais également absurde car elle nierait la flexibilité et la mobilité du langage et son rôle crucial comme acteur du changement. L’article propose donc que les féministes empruntent de nouvelles directions cherchant à redéfinir les mots et concepts, ou bien à redéployer et reformuler les idées existantes.Is gender still “a useful category” of analysis ? The article suggests it may have lost its critical edge. Not only has gender become a banal way of characterizing the difference between the sexes, it has also sometimes prevented feminists from attending to the serious questions posed by new biological and psychological research. The author does not suggest that we erase gender and the useful notions associated with it from our vocabulary, which constitutes not only an impossible task, but one that denies the flexibility and mobility of language and its crucial role as an agency of change. Rather, the article argues that feminists need to move on, seeking new words and new concepts, or perhaps redeployments and reformulations of existing ideas

The Evidence of Experience

Starting from the historical and epistemological problem of “visibility”, this article discusses the role and authority of “experience” in the field of (feminist) history and historiography. The article criticizes the foundational function of “experience” in the works of traditional historians such as R. G. Collingwood or E. P. Thompson and points out that experience has to be seen as a part of the history of the production of knowledge. In fact, there is no pre-discursive or non-historical experience because all experience has a discursive history. Therefore experience itself has to be historicized in order to understand its active role in the construction of identities and the constitution of societies. Hence, the experience of women, homosexuals or opposition groups does not represent any order of things and is no mimetic visualization, but allows us to reflect on the discursive productivity of experience. The article concludes that historians should not naturalize experience, but analyze its operations and redefine its meaning. Experience should not be the starting point of historical explanation, but that which historians want to explain.Starting from the historical and epistemological problem of “visibility”, this article discusses the role and authority of “experience” in the field of (feminist) history and historiography. The article criticizes the foundational function of “experience” in the works of traditional historians such as R. G. Collingwood or E. P. Thompson and points out that experience has to be seen as a part of the history of the production of knowledge. In fact, there is no pre-discursive or non-historical experience because all experience has a discursive history. Therefore experience itself has to be historicized in order to understand its active role in the construction of identities and the constitution of societies. Hence, the experience of women, homosexuals or opposition groups does not represent any order of things and is no mimetic visualization, but allows us to reflect on the discursive productivity of experience. The article concludes that historians should not naturalize experience, but analyze its operations and redefine its meaning. Experience should not be the starting point of historical explanation, but that which historians want to explain

Reclaiming heritage: colourization, culture wars and the politics of nostalgia

This article considers the discursive continuities between a specifically liberal defence of cultural patrimony, evident in the debate over film colourization, and the culture war critique associated with neo-conservatism. It examines how a rhetoric of nostalgia, linked to particular ideas of authenticity,canonicity and tradition,has been mobilized by the right and the left in attempts to stabilize the confguration and perceived transmission of American cultural identity. While different in scale, colourization and multiculturalism were seen to create respective (postmodern) barbarisms against which defenders of culture, heritage and good taste could unite. I argue that in its defence of the ‘classic’ work of art, together with principles of aesthetic distinction and the value of cultural inheritance,the anti-colourization lobby helped enrich and legitimize a discourse of tradition that, at the end of the 1980s, was beginning to reverberate powerfully in the conservative challenge to a ‘crisis’ within higher education and the humanities. This article attempts to complicate the contemporary politics of nostalgia, showing how a defence of cultural patrimony has distinguished major and minor culture wars, engaging left and right quite differently but with similar presuppositions