1st Edition

Feminisms and the Self The Web of Identity

By Morwenna Griffiths Copyright 1995
    230 Pages
    by Routledge

    230 Pages
    by Routledge

    What does the politics of the self mean for a politics of liberation? Morwenna Griffiths argues that mainstream philosophy, particularly the anglo-analytic tradition, needs to tackle the issues of the self, identity, autonomy and self creation. Although identity has been a central concern of feminist thought it has in the main been excluded from philosophical analysis.
    Feminisms and the Self is both a critique and a construction of feminist philosophy. After the powerful challenges that postmodernism and poststructuralism posed to liberation movements like feminism, Griffiths book is an original and timely contribution to current debate surrounding the notion of identity and subjectivity.

    1 Questions of the self: questions of selves Part I Learning from experience 2 Using autobiographical accounts 3 Other lives: learning from their experiences 4 Theory and experience: epistemology, methodology and autobiography Part II Constructing ourselves 5 Wanting and not wanting to belong: acceptance and rejection 6 Feelings, emotions, rationality, politics 7 Emotions of the self: self-esteem and self-creation 8 Autonomy: personal and political Part III Changing 9 Communication and change 10 Changing selves: personal and collective change

    Biography

    Morwenna Griffiths is Lecturer in Education at the University of Notting□ham. With Margaret Whitford, she co-edited Feminist Perspectives in Philoso□phy. She was a founding member of the Society for Women in Philosophy and co-editor of its newsletter, Women’s Philosophical Review.

    'I liked the book tremendously ... Griffiths' work is outstanding for its explicitness, comprehensibility and avoidance of vague abstractions.' - Alison Jaggar, University of Colorado

    'An accessible and engaging account of working at the points of linkage between philosophy and social science, between feminist theory and 'mainstream' theory, between feminist philosophy and 'mainstream' philosophy, between the abstract and the concrete.' - Womens Philosophy Review

    'This is a thought provoking, informative, richly patterned book. It's humane and courageous in its attempt to acknowledge the difficulties and contradictions of a feminist project for change.' - British Journal of Educational Studies