Cut of the Real: Subjectivity in Poststructuralist Philosophy

Following François Laruelle's nonstandard philosophy and the work of Judith Butler, Drucilla Cornell, Luce Irigaray, and Rosi Braidotti, Katerina Kolozova reclaims the relevance of categories traditionally rendered "unthinkable" by postmodern feminist philosophies, such as "the real," "the one," "the limit," and "finality," thus critically repositioning poststructuralist feminist philosophy and gender/queer studies.

Poststructuralist (feminist) theory sees the subject as a purely linguistic category, as always already multiple, as always already nonfixed and fluctuating, as limitless discursivity, and as constitutively detached from the instance of the real. This reconceptualization is based on the exclusion of and dichotomous opposition to notions of the real, the one (unity and continuity), and the stable. The non-philosophical reading of postructuralist philosophy engenders new forms of universalisms for global debate and action, expressed in a language the world can understand. It also liberates theory from ideological paralysis, recasting the real as an immediately experienced human condition determined by gender, race, and social and economic circumstance.

Katerina Kolozova is professor of philosophy and gender studies at the University American College Skopje and has been a member of the International Organization of Non-Philosophy in Paris since its founding. She is the author of The Lived Revolution: Solidarity with the Body in Pain as the New Political Universal, coeditor of Gender and Identity: Theories from and/or on Southeastern Europe, and editor of Conversations with Judith Butler: Crisis of the Subject.