Manchester Studies in Religion, Culture and Gender

Manchester Studies in Religion, Culture and Gender

This series was edited by the late Grace M. Jantzen

The subj ect of love

Hlne Cixous and the feminine divine

Sal Renshaw
A)reocly published

Religion and culture

Michel Foucault
selected ond edited

by

Jererny

R. Carrette

Representations of the post/human

Monsters, aliens and others in popular culture
Elaine L. Graham

Becoming divine Towards a feminist philosophy of religion

Groce

M.

Jcntzen

Divine love
Luce Irigaray, women, gender, and religion
Momy loy

Literatllre, theologF arld feminism

Heather Wokon

Mlnchester University Press

M,ln( llr,sler alrcl New York

,re subject of love

lntroduction

Thus, I found myself captivated by the idea that Cixous' work was and still is all about questions of divinity, and that these questions are a reflection of a very different understanding of the place of religion in contemporary theory. In this respect, then, her work on subjectivity and writing, or love and death, or even her more recent work on the tragedies of history, are all different faces of the same question. Put another way, the gift that Cixous is most interested in is the gift of love. If any single theme can be thought to dominate her work, it is

for the sake of the other.t In this respect, it is a kind of love that is peculiarly inimical to human subjectivity. It is considerably lss gift than it is duty, and this aspect of ogcpe displaces any obvious connection between Hlne Cixous' understanding of an ethic of love and that of orthodox Christian theologies. As awriter who has embraced and indeed inspired many of the insights of contemporary feminism, Cixous is clear that women have traditionally borne the brunt of
sacrificial logic in a patriarchal world. The demand for self-sacrifice has been
a

thethemeof love'swork.C*yslgygl_C:gy9_lSyS*gg'g*lgS:_*lglglz
What would it take to love the other as other, neither to refuse nor to embrace brrl !o create a spacg in which the other is m9t, is brus,hed ag+,r-l!"(r,.il.* 1[q__".th_el,:" perheps felq. as wel! a: leerr? Car we live our subjectivities in a way in which love emerges in the in-betwegn not as somqthing an 'I' doa or hos, brt-t*ather aS-nnmething that"h,appgns to an us, that emerges, in the very space of.meeting? What kind of being does it take to love the other in their otherness and not to sacrifice to and between s-ubiegtivities make oneself in doing so? Wb"*k*g: . "9_{.'19]ltigps possible this notion of a divine meeting in differen? ffi-tffi'"fiiri i*onri thinking about a just love of the other that involves an encounter with the otherness of difference does have a certain presence in thg bt*gry_gilqfg. In a qualified sense, I find it tantalisingly evocative of the
;:::!rr

rnasculine ideal, but a peculiarly feminine practice.s So in that sense Cixous' love,

while clearly understandable

as

other-regarding, is strictly speaking not

cgope

ogapic,

for

Cixous is typic.lly no advocate of sacrificial logic.e

Furthermore, the challenges that the concept of

ced in the twentieth

century have turned out to be almost insurmountable even within the province t>f mainstream Christian Protestant theology. From the 1930s, with the Protestant theologian Bishop Anders Nygren's publication of his controversial
Agope and Eros

(1982 [1932/t938]), and in the subsequenr work of Reinhold Niebuhr, 0g0pe lgain became the subject of serious theological controversy.'o The very conservative, largely Pauline, readings of the conditions of ogopic love that characterised the work of both these men seemingly emphasised the notion of self-denial to

CTdan

*"."pt f igope, which has been understood

selfl.ess

as a universally oriented,

love. In theological terms, God's love is ogopic, and it is characterised as a universal bestowal that arises not in response to the specificity of the object of love but rather out of a fundamental nature that is loving. God is the paradigmatic self/less loverwho in the radical absence of a self that is'doing' the loving is therefore nothing but the becoming of pure love. While the translation of this theological conception of idealised selfless love has in practice been very problematic, particularly for women around the question of selflessness,u there is, nonetheless, something radically egalitarian about a conception of love that is universally expressed regardless of the specificity of the obfect of that Iove. Indeed, I would argue that this egalitarian aspect of Christian love, to the extent that it bears on an ethics of intersubjective relations, has potentially been Christianity's most unique, radical and indeed provocative contribution to ethics. However, the other-regarding aspect of cgcpic love, when applied to humans, and not to God, has, in the practice of much theological interpretation, often been twinned with an equally defining feature. Other-regard is dependent firstly upon the selflessness or self-denial of the subject who loves. AgoF, then, is .selfles.s otherrcgarding love, and in this sense, it can be foturd to be pnrftlundly irnrlicatcd in sacrificial klgic. Lovc of the other that is gcnuine, aud tlttrs tlivitte , irt thc rlrtltodox rt'rlirr of 'acpc, is rrc.dicatt:d ulx)n a self'tlrat, ()n tlte tttost t'r)nlnl()tt itttt'r)rt'ta* llorr ,lf'lllr. nroclt.l of'ft.sus, is .rrr.rrt.ntly *illirrI lo st'rifit'e itself'to tltc ulntost other-regarding,

t The crucifixion has long been interpreted as the archetypal example of sacrificial love. While there is much to be said about this interpretation, it is not the primary focus of this work. Nonetheless, it is important to note that the sacrificial interpretation of Jesus is highly contested within the field of religious studies. The work of Ren Girard, to which I will refer in more detail shortly, is but one place where a non-sacrificial interpretation of Jesus and the Gospels can be filund. ' The sarne insight informs a landmark essay by the feminist theologian Valerie Saiving. Saiving's .rrticle 'The Human Situation: A Feminine View' was published in The Journol of Religious Studia in 1960 and is now considered to be a key text marking the emergence of the new discipline of fi'nrinist theology. In this piece Saiving particularly challenged the theologians Anders Nygren nd Reinhold Niebuhr, both of whose work emphasised the sacrificial aspect of cgopic love. Saiving rroposed that the theological understanding of the human/divine relation on which Nygren and N ictruhr relied in turning to self-sacrifrce as the proper character of cgcpic love * namely that the Irunran situation is characterised by anxiety, estrangement, and the conflict between necessity ,rrd freedom; that sin is directly related to the seeming incorrigibility of human pride, the willt( )-power and exploitation; and the treatment of others as objects rather than as persons - could lrt, sufficiently understood only by recognising that these concerns do not in fact reflect human t'xlcrience, tout court, but male experience, quite specifically. Female experience, Saiving felt, was t'lrrctcrised by the opposite of self-interest, that is, by an abandonment of self in the face of tlrt'otlrer, and self-sacrifice could hardly then be offered as a corrective. '' While nry interest in Cixous' work has consistently been grounded in the way I read her as ,h'vt'krrirrg a rotior of'lovc that is cthical primarily to the extent that it is abundant, excessive, rrrrl gerrer()us ald tltrts that nrns ('()rultcr to sacrificial versions of love, in some of her very recent nr(.nroir writirg wlrit:lr inc'lrrrlt:s rcflection on hcr animals, there is thc disturbing trace of sacrificial hrglt'. See fi,r r.xanl)lt"stigtrtata, or folr thc l)og'fiont Slignloto; E.scrrping Text,s (1998) whcre shc nr'r't('s tlre traglt'story of'her t'llkllurorl tkrg, llils. See lso MCIsie (1996), wlrt're her rt'flectirns

lunr lo lter lrloverl

t'ats,

The subject of love

lntroduction

the extent to which both the Judaic and Christian traditions, in having been so deeply woven through the abominations of Leviticus, have reviled and made the basis of sin the very exigencies of human corporeality. For many contemporary feminist theologians, then, any conception of love that is unable to fully embrace all aspects of what it means to be human, including embodied sexuality, cannot be considered to be a jut love, and, in that sense, it cannot have the redemptive qualities necessary for it to be truly Christian. Traditional cgcpe has fallen well short of these criteria; firstly in typically being interpreted as self-denying, secondly'in being so thoroughly abstracted from the world, and thirdly in being humanly impossible. Nonetheless, I would argue that to a great extent it is the pre-Christian, classical divinity of eros that is re-membered and then Christianised through a feminist theology that has not deeply taken into consideration the ways in which sexual difference is implicated at the level of subjectivity. With their attention sharply focussed on the problem of selflessness, and by extension the self of the already taken-for-granted ontological subiect, woman, much of feminist theology seems
to be marked by

unconscious allegiance to the notoriously masculine, Enlighten-

ment ideals of what a subf ect is in the first place. Eros fits well into this story of both love and subiectivity. But I want to suggest that in Cixous' detachment from many of the formal questions concerning orthodox religions, and in her recognition of subfectivity as an ongoing process of becoming rather than being, fragmentation rather than unity, her work permits the emergence of a conception of love that is divine yet is not predicated upon sacrificial logic. Alison Weir, in her extensive study of the relationship between sacrificial logic and identity, exposes a similar challenge to a project of rethinking identity beyond patriarchal Enlightenment ideologies. She insists that any model of subiectivity must retain some notion of coherence at the level of social participation while simultaneously rejecting an essentialist ontology of authentic selfhood (1996: 185). To whatever extent the notion of authentic selfhood might apply to Cixous' subiect, it does so by contrast with the Enlightenment subiect. The 'authentic' self is not the self that pre-exists the moment. On the contrary the authentic self emerges in opening on to an endless process of becoming, thus can never be thought of as unified or stable. In this vision of the subject as emergent in its relations to and with the world and others, I will suggest that Cixous' subject gives rise to the possibility of a love that generates a certain divinity that might not be equally possible, even in a re-membered eros. The love of which Cixclus speaks is thrlnxrghly human: it is not inimical to the questi()ns rf ertbclclitltent or scxrrality firr it is uot l<lst in an encounter with eitlter. Its tlivinity lies itt its willirrg errrllracc of'thc linrits r-rf'htrnran bcirtg, its recogltitiott tlnt divilte lovtt is Irrt tlrt. tosst.ssior of'a srrhjer:t to givt', rlr tr reccivc. Rather tllvinlty is sottl('thirrg tlrr enlergrs, like t{rrt('(., irr.r sl)3lrl('wlriclr is in lnrllty resl)et'ts heyotttl tlte srtlliet't/

Hlne Cixous' work is undoubtedly an unlikely place to find a love that it would be fair to say that the ways in which it is not oope are so significant as to render this a very long bow to have drawn. Yet, I want to return to the spirit of things. In a sense, it is in the spirit of the way in which Cixous invokes a kind of other-regarding 'selfless' love, in the spirit of a selflessness that derives from generosity and excess that I find the most compelling invitation to return to agope. In the spirit of a love that is'truly' otherregarding, meaning that it is the other that is loved in and for their otherness, love is positioned from a place of self-generosity rather than anxiety. In a most meaningful sense is this not the spirit of agapic love?'t And is it not also this aspect of agapic love that is most mysterious and elusive yet most ethically important and challenging? Cixous' recognition of the fragmentary yet dynamic nature of subiectivities, which is informed by difflerent relation to alterity, a feminine " relation, provides a way of reconsidering the very real problem of selflessness or self-denial that has plagued interpretations of ogape as an ethical basis of love. So it is in the spirit of considering f ust what the conditions of such a divine and other-regarding, non-sacrificial love might be, that this project can be located. Cixous' theorisation of a subiectivity lived differently in and through a love which 'truly' recognises otherness throws an intriguing backlight on the Christian notion of cgopic love and invites us to continue thinking about the place of divine love beyond Nietzsche's tendentious and perhaps premature declaration of the death
resembles agcpe. And perhaps

of God.

Other love
What might it mean to 'truly' love ..M..".r'*'*".

tlt

--g.[h-.-+_:,!-o*l--o'-rr.g*gk*"-t-1r-jk:l*^kgilXr&t

their inagtgggp-]g_"_-{i.,H_"*SSs? Assuming that it is even a possibility, why might we want to, and should we think of this loving in other ways than as a sublime

ffection of the heart? Is rhir ri"tptygg*"9:k gjt_y. g*ig"*-1}*l:gX$S_ r he ideal is one in wtr:sh- self-interest is entfg!y*"S"l*nr+*Lq$? These questions raise the issue of whether we can do anything that benefits another without simultaneously benefiting ourselves? Or do we find our 'selves' necessarily implic,rrcd in any and all acts of giving? C."_y_:_, a; Hl*" _9*:::,p"_{"_9nrq;._e,;:_.S"1_c.3pe *!gJ :be.und-"eppnds to be the magcpllllg*gp."o"nelniep."gf.deb*..qh*q glp-*dj*1"g..lgg giftnf love- somsthing th,at tlcfirr.e IhS m_g:""-{.j|..g_rltydepx/nou,.and.make of the rkrcs not inevitably rgtUrn lA, U$? And who might it be that is the subject of a iving and receiving, I loving and being loved, which has indeed escaped this
r

rrascrrline econonry7

'' lrl,) n()t nl(.ln ltere to glve tlre lrrrrressiolr tht I anl (.x('vatirrg a llrt'ologit'al tra<litiolt rt'qarrl llrg tlre srrtrllnrc gent.roslty of'acr tlr,rt ot'e lrekl swy, To ttty ktowlt'rlge no sttclt trrllliolt exists. lln, orretlelnss, srrggtrtlrrg tlt tlrrorrglt tlrr g,trs llr tlrr trrlltlrlt llrt rloes ('xlst we t'lt llltleerl

The subject of love

lntroduction

other-regarding love in a Christian context with very different investments from thgse of many feminist theologians. In being inseparable from the hegemonic

iEslf
-,-..-

presunes.difftrcnqs,''
---.P+#,.,@

alqys*f,q-"qhe.Mieh

structures of patriarchal logocentrism, Christianity in all its complex guises and permutarions has long exceeded the influence afforded it simply by the faithful. Moreover, and perhaps as a result of the fruitful union benveen the concepts of God, marr, and reason, Christianity has found itself implicated in a complex labyrinth of contradictions where its theologies often bear little or no
resemblance to its instirudonalised practices. Wtrile this project will, to some extent, engage with the more orthodox theological discourses on other-regarding love,

it nonetheless does so from a position of some distance. Through the concept of opope Christianity primarily provides me with a compelling interrogative
for thinking about the ways in which an other-regarding love that opens on to divinity, one that is or can be sourced in generosity and abundance, has been and might be imagined and, perhaps more importantly still, has been and might
be lived. In Chaprer I , I explicitly consider 0g0pe against the background of what is perhaps philosophy's most distinguished discourse on love, Plato's Symposium. I reflect on the tension between Plato's eros, both *tlg* and vine, and Christianity's divine Iove, and inquire into who might be the subiects of these loves. However, it is from the wrirings of the French feminist philosopher Hlne Cixous that this pro-

is reconstitutqdAs-"pther.tha ]oss "or sacrifice p.pe-hasJo*tq3&t*g"a subje*c1ry1y;lg^$_^o5:3"o1pnulege the notion of the self :ytrg pltes.gd*-"sJh_emgnent of love,..FS.":glf"Wlp.Sgdy- is, In this respect, Cixous' selfless lover can be thought of as finding her self, such as this self is, rather than losing her self in her encounter with the other in the present. Thus, in Cixous'theorisation of what some might argue are truly ethical love relations, but what I am here suggesting are in fact <livine love relations, any possessive attachments to self are seen as precluding the possibility of the subject approaching the other in his or her alterity and thus t ccluding the horizon of divinity. Such self-possessive relations are more char.rcteristic of what she takes to be a masculine relation to subjectivity, and they signal the impossibility of a genuine meeting between subjects who can truly tttcet in and through their differences. The self th"t it i" p"_rr"ttrg"
selflessness

*"lf !!_*::1!_*gbiqqg-gle

sFJgLn-qFI

hkt

'"t-19l'

t-ej-upd9ts.tpqd, ac*Eord-

"f

i'.q-9ji::y":.*-9:ly-'o-..t9-P9rth.Ls,,lp'o..I*9.g[.pf.subieEtiyity,@'
xrt qq9*rqn!-t-o_.*rs"Jotality _oJi-qpglf,.is npJgr.in the erd, fully plesgnt !9 ilself, despite

thc fact.q!g_Xgh_g"gglr_c_ep!9p"--o-f id-eF_ti.tJ fras been.privileged !l patnarchal Western t'rrltures, and deqpite the fbe tha! w_e can indeed identify a certain social mask

of' subjecliyi{y

the ,appea-ranqe .of self:pres-qnt upity. Cixous would likely lrc in agreement with Alison Weir on this point that'to rise above the interior

yith

work iect principalty draws its inspiration. In Cixous'

I find a conception of a

t'ltaosmos each one of us gives ourselves a spokesperson I, the social I who votes, wlt<r represents

generous other-regarding love that is ind,eed other-regarding, but that also *iqt escapes the problem of self-sacrifice that attaches to o1ope. Through the discourses of feminism,tt post-structuralism and deconstruction, mgqtand especialy itl"5

me' (Cixous, I994a: xviii). But identity and subjectivity cannot ln'reduced to that spokesperson: 'I ask myself, but I do not answer' (Cixous, 1994a: xviii). For Cixous the subiects that we ore invoke all the ages that we have been
well
as those

ing berween

"l*yl1: r.rU..s i* rro-"nt

g{:pS".i,4e.]i1

ff,

of love that esgP-g: *: Hegelian impulse either ;t**"lq;hS-1b;ttd unitv of th ms-

9i""..y"i "X*:9:,:.5*

,ts

we will be; so too then, are we all the characters of our dreams,

cqli1rgly-r"Eg:|1n:gi'ryrl$-1i3,irss
open rl;_lnarrg._,"

t""!" in posleslio.n of lqelf, she. prop;'.;$;lffi;ffii-".subie.c.|1ityatisdispeT.dandhifti'g,always

.ll*"yj

lir which one of them can we say is not, in some sense, us? '.lure I, ide,ntical to I lrlld-g.l+glsrl:tJsshril{:-i1-gi{fttg*s:.1 s*,h:-*-o-ps+..qst"ef.!}s-t"{a,,c--e-:*er
,ur I by definition changing, moblle,
b_e_ca"use living-spg*ipg-thinking CtSe-tltg, (('ix<rtts, 1994a: xviii). Differences, then, are the ground of whatever unity is

rathgr han bgpg. Thus, with a F".;"pf"-_.S: gf feg-gming view t" |lorg, Ci"ous' own writing privileges the domain of experience via an atrention ro the embodied, phenomenal life of the subject in the very immediacy of living. Pushing the literary into the closest possible relation to the present, Cixous' writing frequently traces the incessant movements of an embodied strbjectivity as it comes into life or living with the other. For Hlne Cixous, whose focus is on 'life' and what it means t<l move towards living, love is possible onlv Ir mov9Jg9lllbqnc.c-$-SflbtS"gg.t-firr trtovetnent
lerself' ', ('ixrrrs rkx.s u(t ir l,rr.t irlt.rrlify wirh tlre tcnr'lcrttitlst'. llt,lcetl slte lr dlstltt't'tl texlll lllli'rrlrt'e, li.rrrr tlrls telrr, st.eirr it s sx.t'lfit'sigrrllier ol'Atrglo Altterlt't llftl'ot lte lo rt(letrl tllet ll rlrrs riqrrlly lrel'llttcrerl llr rttrrllllt nl'r'xttel rllllr"rrltrr, lttl lrr

Irrr.rginable and expressible. Through difference we baome and as such only through

,lilli'rcnce can we come to truly love with grace, if only momentarily.

I will tcvcr say often enough that the difference is not one, that there is never one with,rrt tlrc other, and that the charm of difference (beginning with sexual difference) is that ll l).tsscs. It crosses through us, like a goddess. We cannot capture it. It makes us teeter

witlr t'rroticln. It is in this living agitation that there is always room for you in me, your Irr.s('rrt't' .lltd yollr place. t n Itgl.t ." i4di"i Irrr ,rrrything, an I-klvc-you. (1994a: xviii)
l)t'rrirla's r('('('nt rt'rroir ol'his fiiendshil and l<lngstanding intellccttral c()nlllCrre ('lxous, ll, ('. lirr l.if'e, That ls lo.Say...(006), rcfltt'ts il its very litlt. tltlr etttrlrsls rrr llfb,urrl llvlrrg thet lr.rs clrr,rclt'rist'rl ('ixous'work fiorrr tlrt. outst.l. IJerrirld rortstruclerl tlte lxrol rr-rtulrl tlre nrtkrr ol'teklng skles,'le tlre skle of'rle,rtlr, slre tlre sklr
f,tt'rrrt's

rn

vcrsllot

witll

HAPTE R

Speaking of love
1

Speaking of love: philosophy, theology, and

French feminism

nd she laments that, historically, our thinking has been mired

in the dialectical

structures of a patriarchal logos. Wherever dialectical relations govern the patterns

of exchilge, difference is subordinated to sameness in a'battle for mastery that rages between classes, peoples etc.' (Cixous, 1986a:78). The history of patriarchal ideals of love centres on the subject, and the otherness of the other is routinely rlcnied in and by the privileging of subjectivity. For Cixous, the history of Western culture is 'his story' and 'the same masters dominate history from the beginning, irscribing on it the marks of their appropriating economy' ( I 98 6a: 7 9). The subicct of love igWsrtsm--fucourse is predi-ctably.rnasculine,,and the economy 9f
. --4b#d'

rt:latiorsJy_l$l*yhd ,h"' operates has been defined by reversal, by the negatio+

Love of self

raises a question

for language, a question for the subiect, for the world, for the
this era

of'the (f"_Rf.**llg)",:*::. Ar Cixous says, 'The paradox of oerness is that, of course, ,tt no moment in History is it tolerated or possible as such. The other is ere ,rrtly to be reappropriated, recaptured, and destroyed as other' (1986a: 7l). L"".
,,f'!]]_e

other, for the god(s).

otherlyithin

thi
It

_!q_o*Le

gry.

a taboo. Often in Love of self represents an enigma, an impossibility, sometimes certain modes masturbation, of kind a is self of remains that all subjectivism, sexual of difficult and more of pleasure and. jouissance. But love? This question seems to be much of or iouissance. Love of self is not necessarily to be confused with questions of pleasure 60) (Irigaray,l993a: death. is a question of eros, of agape, of eroticism, of

rr.rrcissisti_c__l*o._y:_"_l*:_:*f
(

)nc that ]g-"Sl.only.that llre net effect of the subordination of difference leads to the 'Empire olT6selfsame' ( 1986a:
'

$ a kind-gfjg:g$glryfl-e9rl!_..k on the sqbjssr, which returns.*. pf9.fit to thr |over. Ar ,h.61@)-plies,

78), and other-regarding love is effectively a contradiction in terms.

Yet within this

of

ver

g*""lgJe runs a deep vein

concern particularly about the role of the self

in relations of love. In many

The body and soul of vine love Throughout history theorists and philosophers of love have been preoccupied with the relationship berween the subiects and oblects of loyg. From Plato's Tr *t;-**t" the christian reflecti

the ideal of loving our enemies, there is a recurring concern with understanding that exchanges of kinds the of think mediating aspecrs of love. How should we Iove brings about? Whether thinking about love concerns relations between

human beings, of relations between humans and the divine, F:.--".:tI.39i* "f while love as developed in Wesrern thought pr_9_Lup?o.ses that something is loved, "i'1

;r * .1gi;*, f !ili" I -r'gy'tg :j ll i; i tuiL ty 9 f cip ro car l.,l"it'.onewhoisdi;;houndistoodtolove,the norion f i& itseTf ii.rtt, ,rorrrr "'rrrbiect/oblect dighotomy that Presuttt"t ;;ifr. ffi, oi i"i.ti"g g"";;ing ih. .*.hange between sameness and difothei. Rs iuch, if and when there is a presumption to .9,.9ak feince,'-r.lf "llove, .rrd il; tl concept of love is necessarily implic3ted meaningfully of

,ffi

"n;

ffi

rt'slects the question of the self has become paradigmatic in thinking about love. Whcther the story begins with the Symposium's various proposals on the nature ' , rf love, or whether one looks to more contemporary theological apologists like ( ', S. Lewisza - who began with wanting to oppose 'need-love' to generous love, rrcl then found himself caught in a labyrinth of theological implications in ttrgating the role of the self in 'need-love' - the story invariably returns to the rttt'stion of self. Always at stake seems to be an implicit assumption that the self Ir,ut obstacle to loving the other and especially to a generous love of the other. Alrrl contemporary secular discourses are no less vulnerable to measuring the Fcn('rosity of love against an assumption that the self represents a problem. In ,llscttssions of altruism, for example,it is often the teleology of the gift as it relates ln tltc srtbject who gives that defines whether or not the gift is given with genrrusity. If there is symmetry beneen intentions and outcome, i.e., if someone lf rlcnrlcd to give generously, and, in the end, apparently derived no personal gain
lr rrr r r

tlrc gift, one can condude that the gift was alnrristic. The question of the other,

in concerns about subjectivitY.

For the feminist thinker Hlne Cixous, the sexual politics of'ltow love has traclitigally been trnderstoocl to negotiate a srrtriect/<lhiec't relatiotr has been a (0rstAnt pr(.()ccllpati()n ()f'lrr.r w<lrk, wlri(.lr is ilrfirrntt'rl by, atttl ctltttrillrltt's to, t,rrtt.rlx )rary llrilosollrir'l rt fle.t'tirxrs orr rlif li'rt'nt't' atttl srrlliet:tivlty, Tltrtlttgltottt ()ll('erlit)tls (lf' lovt' ll.lvt' Ircr wririlrg slt(. (.xlkrres lllt. w,rys ilr wltlt'lt tlif lbrerrl (

ur tlr('r('ceipt of the gift, is very often submerged to the point of invisibility, as tlre srrlrjcct's awareness of itself in e act of giving is constituted as the yardstick , 'l loV(. irrcl of'gcncrosity. Wlrilt'irt the realm of'the philosophy of love Plato is understood as the first lrnlogist of'rational lovc, il lovc that lends itsclf to bt'ing thought of in tenns of'

!.Qb*!

Speaking of love
The subject of love

The interunion of man and woman does provoke the issue of procreation. itself' loving of outside is that mediary nature of love is displaced by a telos couple, pro_crelting Initially this is symbolically represented in the child of the

b"gl-s-*
also nores

constructiell

o-f

love in

r
tB:.T

. Believing

that 'the loleq]s. b.pqd' heq

thL context of a world

binary strucwho becomes the object of love, and, in so doing, inaugurates the account of the genture of lover and beloved that was absent in Diotima's initial

tffii

(Gubermall, 1996:68).She discourr.id has historicaltv bee+ insepa{tFte froln

peIP

":ogi3l-P.-9*$,

to the abstract account erative union of lovers. Secondly, as the discourse returns

bringing of the ascent of the soul, the telos of procreation transforms into the in Irigaray, 1993a: forth of wisdom, along wirh every other spiritual value (Plato insight is lost 29).The embodied, immediacy that characterised Diotima's initial over the values spiritual abstract of as the binary logos affirms the superiority spiritual and corporeal affinities of lovers.
the intermediary To fall in love, to become divine, or immortal, is no longer left to
dies as a result. In the unicurrent but qualified, hierarchized, and in the worst case, love loving duties, the beloved and competitions, verse of determinations, there will be goals, 36) 1993a: (Irigaray, disappear. or love being the goal. The lovers

-tb--t-gY-9"rlk# ""*]1&'"gj3 served as a lover s which once is been broken.tt 'There is no more religion, whtch 9nc-e-.S-e.gLq3[-e*l9y9i
rt

j*"s9'llsli'rstgy*Msss.etLgf
..-t*#*-'g'-'*i*xn@4*N&

!;d'ra s*F**f,

n@&@rtffi

Kristeva in Guberman, 1996: 68). For Kristeva, psychoanalysis offers a 'ne\M' model of love in this contemporary climate of diversity, for it offers a space in which the lover's discourse can be spoken in the context of a relationship that she understands to itself be n &/.\r' ( , tr)l predicated on love. 'lty.g,tt:t.33.1l:iq h+l g-i":g. :hgp*" fe +..!eYs.r-F *diqqgy{f,e"stff- ,QA \aj' ) e- )

T-s

to be nery;

;fualstospeakaboutthe5}-o-Y-i(KristevainGuberman,I996:69). \.I:o..,J ege of embodied knowing breals Moreov"r, ,hli;aru mfiri

with the hisrory of the dichotomous split between mind and body, and therein
offers a challenge to the history of constructing love on a model of binary oppositions. Psychoanalysis, as practice as well as theory, has a particularly significant place in Kristeva's work, and this distinguishes her from both Cixous and Irigaray.

il +

-e"slslpllsi"t-lJ*i**t1'ffgslslss*g39lFat

.P:(.4('('

in Diotima's For Irigaray, the economy of desire that is ultimately represented in and constituted are dualities which in speech conforms to a logic of exclusion of the cost the at won is through binary relations of opposition wherein identity gendered the other. However, from the outset of her writing, she has explored of the metaaffinities of this economy of desire. Her now infamous invocation yet another of part actually is which tips phor of women's lips, i.e., their vaginal

While Irigaray is also

tf t ig.ray's rexrs on love -

way of theorising a different relation to difference, feminist criticism still stands, over fwenty years later, as a powerful exemplar of simultaneously of this masculine logic.ae In the invocation of a female body that connection constant in are lips two the for invokes and resists binary division the negotiating of way we have an image of a very different
as a

to engage with psychoanalytic theory as opposed to psychoanalytic practice. Her more recent work, however, does draw considerably more on her experience as a practitioner. In reflecting on an ethical couple relation Kristeva implicitly draws on a Marxist
a practising psychoanalyst, she has tended

model of social relations, noting that which once formed the unifying link is less apparent in the contemPorary

con-

.f,glo-rr-
occupieci. ns

with

each other

constant enfolding boundaries befween sameness and difference. where in the Irigaray of flesh end does one begin and another end? From the female body of experience embodied fully the which builds a new logic of difference in cost the at won be cannot that sexual difference is the paramount value, a value

tffico-lifrfiEffi:oricaliy

'nPucthe form6 space of urrlry aud-cqr certain osvchic autonomv' now I -^-" pervades !-::-::=-=-:-:--- - ,_-who arg now cb4laglgrised more flly I individlals berween lation the vvo ----.:-..-.;;. ----+ "6; as travins differentinterests thatreflect sexual difference (Guberman, 1986: 70). -r
I

sia

il

I
I
I

fu":_;=ffiiiii*rl"eJ.l
.ont"mooriEiJJ ._.-.-*k#

"

g. gse$e et.terg

of the other.
JULIA KRISTEVA

I \l

is contemporary climate that. in Kristeva believes -:--==: :--i=l^-ji-

of 'psychic autonqrll:,

For Julia Kristeva, whose affinities,with Lacanian-P,:y.*9gg:-t;-,g:-":.t-?:.""t"i1S" l' trls'9g+-c'-egt9[]'gys t key to

_'.ii.ionsbgtwe9nmenandwomelitrast>cialandlris-

the lmatory relationslrip;g-s[qgreg!!9g6e.d-p,g -*rs"ressseitiessfu[s freedom otlg-gbg-c12r.rex1 glar-r- 1c!r-r9wl9-d-g-gry-1gf' ur'a-ird-ep*el*"ngS-S{-qhgog.*t. the oer's freedom can fference be adequately preserved 4r-rd a n9g4iv-9.Sl5t,.d

ari..llgrtegt. Drawing extensively on re lstory of writitrg on l<lve, slte ha's writtcr a sttbstantial work, Talgs nf !.olq 02p73)t Wbtqhl3ltges fiorrt reflcctions

""'i-@o:q$itl's-g-!i'-:19f r"1". iiilil,ing f,,r rtirUect. 'Eiitr individual must frnd his or her owt ttotifl,
f

oygcanng!-!9-:gl"itg:=d*'"-t:g!"rd'"

.;t.;"ii;-reprcsctttitltttlf.lrlveinlitt.r.rttlr(.,ltltltt.

"" Krisl('vt's ust: rl'rlis t'ont't.rt ol' krvt'r's rlist'r)ursc rcvt'als ltt'r flillitit's witll tlt' wrrk rll llotrrrl ll,trtltt.s, St't' Ilarlllcs, A l,ovfr'r l)il'otlrrc l97tl ll1977l. "' S"" als Krlstrv.r'r ln lhc llellnnlng Wrr l,ove: Itrycltrrunolysir ottrl Frilh ( lt)tl7t') firr,r tlellllcrl ellHAgr

Ir

EI

./

The subiect of love

Speaking of love

of gratiflcation and satisfaction while establishing a modicum of consensus and communication with a steady partner' (Ikisteva in Guberman, 1996:70-7 1.). While e theat of dependency in relations of love cannot be avoided altogether, Kristeva privileges e idea that there is a type of dependency
causes, and objects

haveillustratedhereistheeXtenttowhichthis"
ile the concept of a1opeholds our the of a generous, other-regarding Promise love, in the hands of even relatively contcmporary thinkers like Anders Nygren the anxiety about self-love leads to the loss of the other as other, as well as to the sacrifice of self. And in the work of ftrlia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and Hlne Cixous, jb:l gf.thS_glhg-l:J|g3lly

tlq t

and that this has refl.t.

which can be chosen, one which does not inevitably signal submission or surrender to the other. tn other words, there are Food and bad dependencies'.

hradditiontothequestionsofloveinthecouplerelation,tbe-tror.jf mal-"g!v.E:b99q-P3l$.sgirJrsrys-d-t-o'&lsv19-99Jrgp-gtionto$blesjn
sexualdif ferengg-r.?14,.t9-.il*9t!*s gfu sgerpf -bjesgy-lly-"!1S,9-"qb*=@9"

l"X

rt."a,ii.{ioa..a,9.9ntr1the-hf l"Vof OO**9-{g"IS4i!i+ea4"1svs'ei$Lva

believes at it is the imaginary p-l$gmStitS.I thal""o:ry",s".fasoninuilyj!.rc1a-

,io.+lSpr-'**tr -t' *s rhere is ",h r;p;,n 14{.99pllSSti,n. While she undoubtedly acknowledges trriiffi;;t;ffii;d ian reflect a negative dependency in which the autonomy of the oer fails to be recognised, she nonetheless proposes that the ideal mother-child bond is one in which e subject is constituted in a relation to
than and wi e other. This is a relation at is marked by continuity rather achievof model the cut of separation at has historically defined the Freudian ing subjectivity. To this extent, Kristeva refutes the logic of Enlightenment ideology wherein the subject precedes itself in its relations with others. Rather the subject is continuallY becoming. are significant affinities bj{een

l+el.Mgedglfu-+f""*

*h',th

within the masculine logos, we can see even in the all too brief engagement with of their thought here that each of them works instead towards initially rcvealing and then offering an alternative to the binary logic that has managed the lover's discourse seemingly for as long as it has been one. Each of them, irr different ways, reopens the space of love with a view to the possibility of a generous love of the other.
some

ilne other who instead of embodying generosity and abundance becomes instead lhe paradigmatic sacrificial object. In attending, then, to the otherness of woman

gf_te &g1$ps etbe;, ,h.

f;_

.There construction of love as a

*pfr""r

dom resonates wi lrigaray's notion of love as an agent of baoming rather an being. As we will shortly see, Cixous' construction of love is similarly oriented towards e notion of baoming, and she bases is possibility on a feminine relation to difference at has similar debts to the matemal model, as does Kristeva. the For each of these writers e nope of fference permits a reconstruction of and life, human on masculine logic of sameness at has dominated scussions

""

"4tl'lrt-;thti"s . p*tt* *"t. love that allows the birth of the other in free-

'ird

5ryt-t-"1'@* uiffiltcts'

Kristeva's

at

has excluded a recognition of

e significance at

sexual difference makes

to all knowledges. In different ways, each of these writers has seen woman and the feminine as the sacrificial object on which man has constiruted himself as subject, and it is in opposition to this sacrificial logic that each of em ProPoses
a

new concePtion oflove.

Concluding remarks

I bcgan tis chapter with the assertion that the histr:ry of love has clcarly beur rlee hy a disctrrsivc priviltging of the hinary strllcltlre of krve' Lrver atld
lx.l6vt.rl, crs rul ofl(pc, g(.(.r()rrs and at'rtrisitive

lovc

tlcsr'rc thc oPlxrsitiotlal