Laughing with Medusa explores a series of interlinking questions, including: Does history's self-positioning as the successor of myth result in the exclusion of alternative narratives of the past? How does feminism exclude itself from certain historical discourses? Why has psychoanalysis placed myth at the centre of its explorations of the modern subject? Why are the Muses feminine? Do the categories of myth and politics intersect or are they mutually exclusive? Does feminism's recourse to myth offer a script of resistance or commit it to an ineffective utopianism? Covering a wide range of subject areas including poetry, philosophy, science, history, and psychoanalysis as well as classics, this book engages with these questions from a truly interdisciplinary perspective. It includes a specially commisssioned work of fiction, `Iphigeneia's Wedding', by the poet Elizabeth Cook.

Uncovering an archive of laughter, from the forbidden giggle to the explosive guffaw. Most of our theories of laughter are not concerned with laughter. Rather, their focus is the laughable object, whether conceived of as the comic, the humorous, jokes, the grotesque, the ridiculous, or the ludicrous. In Laughter, Anca Parvulescu proposes a return to the materiality of the burst of laughter itself. She sets out to uncover an archive of laughter, inviting us to follow its rhythms and listen to its tones. Historically, laughter—especially the passionate burst of laughter—has often been a faux pas. Manuals for conduct, abetted by philosophical treatises and literary and visual texts, warned against it, offering special injunctions to ladies to avoid jollity that was too boisterous. Returning laughter to the history of the passions, Parvulescu anchors it at the point where the history of the grimacing face meets the history of noise. In the civilizing process that leads to laughter's “falling into disrepute,” as Nietzsche famously put it, we can see the formless, contorted face in laughter being slowly corrected into a calm, social smile. How did the twentieth century laugh? Parvulescu points to a gallery of twentieth-century laughers and friends of laughter, arguing that it is through Georges Bataille that the century laughed its most distinct laugh. In Bataille's wake, laughter becomes the passion at the heart of poststructuralism. Looking back at the century from this vantage point, Parvulescu revisits four of its most challenging projects: modernism, the philosophical avant-gardes, feminism, and cinema. The result is an overview of the twentieth century as seen through the laughs that burst at some of its most convoluted junctures.

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, language: English, abstract: In the year 1975 the French feminist author Helene Cixous published an essay called “The Laugh of the Medusa”. In it, she develops an entirely new theoretical concept with the aim of giving rise to feminist voice. The central ideas of Ecriture Feminine, literally “women’s writing”, are going to be presented in this paper. In the first part, a brief description of Cixous’s intellectual milieu is given in order to show the actual reason that led her to come up with a new notion of liberating women from patriarchy. In this context, an elaboration on poststructuralism, the philosophical current Cixous belonged to, follows. Closely related to that is the authors skepticism towards Sigmund Freud’s language philosophy. Specifically speaking, Freud’s statements on the penis envy theory. Primary attention is paid to the theory of phallocentrism, which can be seen as one of the main reasons for Cixous’s writings. For a better understanding of this term, the concept of logocentrism is also explained, as well. Logocentrism can be seen as a pillar of the theory of phallocentrism and therefore it deserves to be mentioned at this point. In the second part, we deal with the question of what is actually meant by “women’s writing”. Furthermore, we will analyze which role the female body and sexuality plays in this context. This excursion is highly interesting as it is crucial for the understanding of her concept. Since the female body is considered a key for women to resist masculinist thinking and, hence, the systematic repression of women. Apart from that, we try to show whether features of Ecriture Feminine are evident in the “The Laugh of the Medusa”. Moreover, a different viewpoint on Cixous’s theory is shown in the chapter “Criticism” in which arguments for and against her theory are shown. In point five “Conclusion” the main aspects of this paper are summed up. When writing this paper, the main source of information were essays on women’s writing and French feminist writing, dating from 1987 to 1986. Besides, secondary literature on literary and cultural theory as well as feminist practice and poststructuralist theory were used. Recent research on Cixous’s work, however, could not be found. The only source dealing particularly with her writings dates from 1991.

Little Medusa comes from a long line of snake-loving, serpentine-wearing Gorgons. When she receives her very first snake, Little Medusa discovers that having a snake slither and slide through her hair isn't so great after all. And to make matters more difficult, she begins questioning if she really wants to scare her friends to stone with her new forever friend. Using her imagination and heart, Little Medusa tries her best to please her family, her best-pet snake, and herself. Based on Greek Mythology, Little Medusa features Common Core Connections and explores the universal themes of following family tradition and staying true to oneself.

A lucid, original and inventive critical introduction to Helene Cixous (1937-). Royle offers close readings of many of her works, from Inside (1969) to the present. He foregrounds Cixous's importance for 'English literature' as well as creative writing, autobiography, narrative theory, psychoanalysis, ecology, gender studies and queer theory.

This is the first truly representative collection of texts by Helene Cixous. The substantial pieces range broadly across her entire oeuvre, and include essays, works of fiction, lectures and drama. Arranged helpfully in chronological order, the extracts span twenty years of intellectual thought and demonstrate clearly the development of one of the most creative and brilliant minds of the twentieth century. With a foreword by Jacques Derrida, a preface by Cixous herself, and first-class editorial material by Susan Sellers, The Helene Cixous Reader is destined to become a key text of feminist writing.

An updated edition of the Sunday Times Bestseller Britain's best-known classicist Mary Beard, is also a committed and vocal feminist. With wry wit, she revisits the gender agenda and shows how history has treated powerful women. Her examples range from the classical world to the modern day, from Medusa and Athena to Theresa May and Hillary Clinton. Beard explores the cultural underpinnings of misogyny, considering the public voice of women, our cultural assumptions about women's relationship with power, and how powerful women resist being packaged into a male template. A year on since the advent of #metoo, Beard looks at how the discussions have moved on during this time, and how that intersects with issues of rape and consent, and the stories men tell themselves to support their actions. In trademark Beardian style, using examples ancient and modern, Beard argues, 'it's time for change - and now!' From the author of international bestseller SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome.

In traditional mythology and iconography, Medusa's killing powers are attributed to visual means: the monster is slain for her looks and her effect is to kill men for looking at her. Challenging the familiar account of the modern era as ocularcentric, this book reads the Medusa-effect on the philosophy of the modern research university as rooted in an audiocentric fantasy. Author Dawne McCance links phonocentrism to an aural imaginary by tracking the trope—and terror—of the deaf ear and mute mouth in the discourse on the university that was inaugurated by Kant and that extends through Hegel and Heidegger to the present. She shows how, repeatedly, in founding texts on the modern research university, the philosopher's fearful recoil from an animal-female figure that he defines as deaf and dumb has the effect—the Medusa-effect—of cutting off his own, and therefore the institution's, ear and tongue. McCance also considers some recent efforts to shake the modern institution out of its Medusa-effect petrification.