Abstract

This dissertation aims at examining a French feminist philosopher, Luce Irigaray's theoretical development and the significance of her works by arguing her relationship with psychoanalysis, philosophy, and literature. In Part I, I will illustrate how Irigaray has developed her "feminism of difference" through critically reading a French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan and a French philosopher, Jacques Derrida's discussion of sexual difference and the woman/women. Part II will argue how the problems and agencies of women in patriarchy discussed by Lacan, Derrida, and Irigaray in Part I are applicable to non-Western women. For this attempt, I will read two Japanese American woman's texts, "And the Soul Shall Dance" by Wakako Yamauchi, and "The Hemisphere: Kuchuk Hanem" by Kimiko Hahn. Both texts demonstrate the universal aspects of women's oppressive reality, but at the same time their texts complicate women's oppression because of various differences women have. Hahn's text and Irigaray's thinking suggest the possibility of overcoming the hierarchical relationship between the West and the East, women and men by enabling the oppressed people to be speaking subjects, however their strategy is snagged in front of the colonial or masculine subjects' indifference to the voice of the oppressed. Part III will consider Irigaray's strategy to let women and men encounter as subjects through rethinking ethics. Irigaray's reconsideration of ethical relationship between women and men leads her to reimagine politics of sexual difference. Lastly, I will examine the possibility of applying Irigaray's ethics and politics of sexual difference to other differences. How can maintaining sexual difference negotiate tensions arising from various differences such as race, class, religion, and so on among women?