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Politics, Identity, and Social Change: Contested Grounds in Psychoanalytic Feminism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Abstract

This essay engages in a debate with Nancy Fraser and Dorothy Leland concerning the contribution of Lacanian-inspired psychoanalytic feminism to feminist theory and practice. Teresa Brennan's analysis of the impasse in psychoanalysis and feminism and Judith Butler's proposal for a radically democratic feminism are employed in examining the issues at stake. I argue, with Brennan, that the impasse confronting psychoanalysis and feminism is the result of different conceptions of the relationship between the psychical and the social. I suggest Lacanian-inspired feminist conceptions are useful and deserve our consideration.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by Hypatia, Inc.

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