Philosophy and the Maternal Body: Reading Silence

by Michelle Boulous Walker

Philosophy and the Maternal Body is an invaluable study of the crucial significance of the maternal body in philosophy, and is essential reading for all those in gender studies, feminist philosophy, psychoanalytic studies and literature.

248 pages, Paperback

First published February 26, 1998

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved reading this book. In particular, the information provided about language and its use in forms of symbolic power. This was conveyed through an analysis of Plato's Cave, which can be found in Plato's Republic, and the reading and analysis of silence and denial. This book makes an excellent addition to the work of Amber Jacobs, On Matricide: Myth, Psychoanalysis, and the Law of the Mother, in which forms of symbolic power have been employed in ancient Greek myths like Zeus' parturition of Metis as the foreclosure against the maternal body as well as the ancient Greek tragedy of Aeschylus' Oresteia and "the dead mother who cannot be mourned." Additionally, it helps to uncover the secret language of the maternal body through acknowledging the works of female psychoanalysts, as well as the secret language of the maternal body's influences on subjects (children) with her symbolic interactions with pre-Oedipal stage children at the breast, at a time before the subject's (child's) formation of articulate language. The experiences at the maternal breast help establish the realm of unconscious and of pre-language and to which can directly contributes to unconscious script and how that unconscious script can influence the repetition drive. This books makes an excellent read for anyone interested in symbolic expressions of language as well as anyone interested in theories of human development and the impact of the maternal body on subject formation. Judith Butler's, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in subjection, will make additional contributions to the readers insights on the subject matter as Butler's philosophical work deals directly with philosophy and the formation of subjects.