IAS Book Launch: What Is Sexual Difference?

Luce Irigaray has written that “sexual difference is one of the major philosophical issues, if not the issue, of our age.”
Spanning metaphysics, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis, Mary C. Rawlinson's work examines how sexual difference structures being and subjectivity, organises our experience of the world, and affects the images and discourses involved in knowledge production and practical action. No other philosopher has paid such careful attention to the consequences of the elision of sexual difference in philosophical thought. However, at a time when notions of sexual and gender difference are hotly contested, Irigaray’s thought has often been dismissed as essentialist or reductively binary. What Is Sexual Difference? brings together leading scholars to consider the philosophical implications of Irigaray’s writing on sexual difference, particularly for issues of gender and race. Their essays directly confront the charge of essentialism, exploring how Irigaray’s thought opens new possibilities for understanding the complexity of gender identities, including nonbinary and trans experiences as well as alternative configurations of masculinity and femininity. Though Irigaray is sometimes accused of a failure to appreciate racial difference, contributors show the productive role of her work in thinking race. This book also illuminates how Irigaray’s work provides creative practices that help realign human experience and our relations with nature and each other. More information about the book can be found here. 

For the launch of her book, Mary C. Rawlinson will be in conversation with her co-editor, James Sares (University of Kentucky). Peg Rawes (UCL Bartlett School of Architecture) and Alex Hyde (UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society) will comment.