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Irigaray's Mimicry and the Problem of Essentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Ping Xu
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Abstract

This essay deals with the essentialism controversy concerning Luce Irigaray through looking into her strategic use of mimicry, which has not been fully addressed by her critics. The author argues that what appear to be essentialist elements in Irigaray's writings are in fact the “sites” where she is mimicking the phallogocentric discourse in order to uncover its essentialist and “sexed” nature and at the same time to resist being reabsorbed into its reductive order.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , Fall 1995 , pp. 76 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by Hypatia, Inc.

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