For Fear of the Fire: Joan of Arc and the Limits of Subjectivity - Softcover

Meltzer, Françoise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226519821 ISBN 13: 9780226519821

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

Why are contemporary secular theorists so frequently drawn to saints, martyrs, and questions of religion? Why has Joan of Arc fascinated some of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century? In a book that faces crucial issues in both critical and feminist inquiry, Françoise Meltzer uses the story of Joan as a guide for reading the postmodern nostalgia for a body that is intact and transparent. She argues that critics who place excessive emphasis on opposition and difference remain blind to their nostalgia for the pre-Cartesian idea that the body and mind are the same.

Engaging a number of theorists, and alternating between Joan's historical and cultural context, Meltzer also explores the ways in which postmodern thinkers question subjectivity. She argues that the way masculine subjects imagine Joan betrays their fear of death and necessitates the role of women as cultural others: enigmatic, mysterious, dark, and impossible. As such, Joan serves as a useful model of the limits and risks of subjectivity. For Meltzer, she is both the first modern and the last medieval figure. From the ecclesial jury that burned her, to the theorists of today who deny their attraction to the supernatural, the philosophical assumptions that inform Joan's story, as Meltzer ultimately shows, have changed very little.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Françoise Meltzer is the chair of the Department of Comparative Literature and professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Divinity School, and the College at the University of Chicago. She is the author of several works, including Hot Property, The Trial(s) of Psychoanalysis, and Salome and the Dance of Writing, as well as a coeditor of Critical Inquiry.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Why are contemporary secular theorists so frequently drawn to saints, martyrs, and questions of religion? Why has Joan of Arc fascinated some of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century? In a book that faces crucial issues in both critical and gender inquiry, Françoise Meltzer uses the story of Joan as a guide for reading the postmodern nostalgia for a body that is intact and transparent. She argues that critics who place excessive emphasis on opposition and difference betray a nostalgia for an imagined, pre-Cartesian time when body and mind are as one. Engaging a number of theorists, and alternating between Joan's historical and cultural context, Meltzer explores the ways in which postmodern thinkers question and gender subjectivity. She argues that the way masculine subjects imagine Joan betrays their fear of death and necessitates the role of woman as other. As such, Joan serves as a useful model of the limits and risks of subjectivity. For Meltzer, she is both the first modern and the last medieval figure.

Aus dem Klappentext

Why are contemporary secular theorists so frequently drawn to saints, martyrs, and questions of religion? Why has Joan of Arc fascinated some of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century? In a book that faces crucial issues in both critical and gender inquiry, Françoise Meltzer uses the story of Joan as a guide for reading the postmodern nostalgia for a body that is intact and transparent. She argues that critics who place excessive emphasis on opposition and difference betray a nostalgia for an imagined, pre-Cartesian time when body and mind are as one. Engaging a number of theorists, and alternating between Joan's historical and cultural context, Meltzer explores the ways in which postmodern thinkers question and gender subjectivity. She argues that the way masculine subjects imagine Joan betrays their fear of death and necessitates the role of woman as other. As such, Joan serves as a useful model of the limits and risks of subjectivity. For Meltzer, she is both the first modern and the last medieval figure.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0226519821
• ISBN 13: 9780226519821
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 2
• Anzahl der Seiten: 268
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar