CONTESTED POSITIONS: MODERNITY, POSTMODERNITY, AND THE FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF SAINTLY ETHICS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17192/mjr.1997.2.3775Abstract
Several years ago, feminist theorist Nancy Hartsock illuminated the central weakness of postmodernist theory with a simple question: ""Why is it, exactly at the moment when so many of us who have been silenced begin to demand the right to name ourselves, to act as subjects rather than objects of history, that just then the concept of subjecthood becomes 'problematic'?"1 Although posed from a specifically feminist perspective, Hartsock's question touches the underlying regressive political tendencies of postmodernism which come to light most vividly in its treatment of Enlightenment conceptualizations of subjectivity, or human agency, and its role in the production of history. The repudiation of the subject and autonomous moral agency occupies a central place in postmodern thought. Its firm insistence on the 'death of the subject' has disturbing political and ethical implications not only for women and their struggles for freedom, but for any subjugated group. Rosi Braidotti's description of postmodernism's regressive and oppressive tendencies is valid beyond the concerns of an emancipatory feminist theory: "contemporary philosophical discussions on the death of the knowing subject...have the immediate effect of concealing and undermining the attempts of women to find a theoretical voice of their own...in order to deconstruct the subject one must first have gained the right to speak as one."Downloads
Published
2015-08-26
How to Cite
Hewitt, M. A. (2015). CONTESTED POSITIONS: MODERNITY, POSTMODERNITY, AND THE FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF SAINTLY ETHICS. Marburg Journal of Religion, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.17192/mjr.1997.2.3775
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Overall copyright is assigned to Marburg Journal of Religion. Authors retain copyright for individual contributions and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.An author may give permission for an article published here to be published elsewhere, provided that the source is indicated in the form "First published in Marburg Journal of Religion, Volume 00 (year), Number 00".