The Feminist Uncanny in Theory and Art Practice

Description

The Feminist Uncanny in Theory and Art Practice investigates the widely debated, deeply flawed yet influential concept of the uncanny through the lens of feminist theory and contemporary art practice. Not merely a subversive strategy but a cipher of the fraught but fertile dialogue between feminism and psychoanalysis, the uncanny makes an ideal vehicle for an arrangement marked by ambivalence and acts as a constant reminder that feminism and psychoanalysis are never quite at home with one another. The Feminist Uncanny begins by charting the uncanniness of femininity in foundational psychoanalytic texts by Ernst Jentsch, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and Mladen Dolar, and contextually introduces a range of feminist responses and appropriations by Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Sarah Kofman, among others. The book also offers thematically organised interpretations of famous artworks and practices informed by feminism, including Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, Faith Ringgold's story quilts and Susan Hiller's 'paraconceptualism', as well as less well-known practice, such as the Women's Postal Art Even (Feministo) and the photomontages of Maud Sulter. Dead (lexicalised) metaphors, unhomely domesticity, identity and (dis)identification, and the tension between family stories and art's histories are examined in and from the perspective of different artistic and critical practices, illustrating different aspects of the feminist uncanny. Through a 'partisan' yet comprehensive critical review of the fascinating concept of the uncanny, The Feminist Uncanny in Theory and Art Practice proposes a new concept, the feminist uncanny, which it upholds as one of the most enduring legacies of the Women's Liberation Movement in contemporary art theory and practice. Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Why witches? Setting the scene Feminism and the uncanny Theory and/as practice, practice and/as theory: Chapter summaries Chapter 1 The Uncanny Feminine The uncanniness of ‘The “Uncanny” ’ The uncanny core Uncanny couplings (An Interlude)5 The uncanny and anxiety The uncanny feminist Chapter 2 The Feminist Uncanny Doomed from the start The return of the Medusa The Uncanny in/as fiction: Feminist readings too close for comfort The abject The monstrous and the demonic Identity inside out Dead metaphors, genre-fuck, world-making Chapter 3  ‘Moving Sideways’ and Other Dead Metaphors: Susan Hiller’s Paraconceptualism Sleeping metaphors1 ‘Your Sisters from Thebes’3 Dead President Uncanny Voices Chapter 4 Squats and Evictions: The Uncanny as Unhomely Saving Louise Feminizing domesticity, domesticating the feminine Womanhouse (1972) and the Women’s Postal Art Event, a.k.a. Feministo (1975–77)9 Chapter 5 Dinner Parties: Eating Out, Coming Together Setting the scene Too much? Dinner parties: Coming together Off with their heads Chapter 6 Family Albums: World-Making as Compensation Between snapshot and document The artist and/as model: ‘You’re primitive but very pretty’ (unravelling modernism)7 World (un)making Chapter 7 Postscripts Postscript A: Enduringly feminist, still uncanny Postscript B: The melancholic one2 Notes Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Bibliography Index