Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly by Sarah Lucia Hoagland


Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly
Title : Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0271020180
ISBN-10 : 9780271020181
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 464
Publication : First published August 1, 2000

This open-ended anthology is a journey into the very canon that Mary Daly has argued to be patriarchal and demeaning to women. This volume deauthorizes the official canon of Western philosophy and disrupts a related story told by some feminists who claim that Daly's work is unworthy of re-reading because it contains fatal errors. The editors and contributors attempt to prove that Mary Daly is located in the Western intellectual tradition. Daly may be highly critical of conventional Western epistemological and theological traditions, but she nevertheless appropriates themes "out-of-context" for the building of her own systematic philosophy.

The following are just a few of the many themes explored in this volume:

- the question of subjectivity understood as an ongoing process of be-coming

- the ambiguity of the need for feminists of colonial nations to speak out about violence against women in other parts of the world while that speaking carries with it the stamp of a colonial location

- the territoriality of lesbian and women's space

- the theological dimensions of twentieth-century Western philosophy.

Contributors are Wanda Warren Berry, Purushottama Bilimoria, Debra Campbell, Molly Dragiewicz, Frances Gray, Amber L. Katherine, AnaLouise Keating, Anne-Marie Korte, Maria Lugones, Geraldine Moane, Sheilagh A. Mogford, Laurel C. Schneider, Renuka Sharma, and Marja Suhonen.

Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly Reviews

  • fausto

    This is an obligatory reading for anyone really interested in Mary Daly's work. I really found important that the authors disperse the myth of the "essencialist bias" of Mary Daly work, instead they show the complexity and originality of her thought and her constributions to the construction of feminist lenguage and symbols, after reading this anthologhy I understand that Daly's main themes in her work are the transcendence and the idea of being (Be-ing) against the non being (Sadosociety).
    While the anthology did't have "sections" you can find main subjets in the organization of the essays: those that deal with theological and philosophical aspects of Daly's work--fundamental in order to understand the construction of her ideas--those that deal with post-colonial and anti-racist perspectives and finally some that show the application of Mary Daly's work in the investigation of particular aspects of women's lives.

    While very interesting and well-written, Amber L. Katherine's essay is inaccurate, because Daly actually respond to Audre Lorde's letter, respond that appear in Daly's book "Amazon Grace" (2006) six years later from this anthology. But the question remains: Why Lorde's letter has not been under analysis and criticism, specially for her obvious lack of ethics?

    I hope in the future Mary Daly's work can be vindicated, her profound analysis of patriarchy and female construction of transcendence, Be-ing and symbology is the most Be-Dazzling, Biophilic of her Kind in the feminist philosophy and women's studies community.