The Straight Mind and Other Essays

The Straight Mind and Other Essays is a 1992 collection of essays by Monique Wittig.

The Straight Mind and Other Essays
Cover of the first edition
AuthorMonique Wittig
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
PublisherBeacon Press
Publication date
1992
Media typePrint

The collection was translated into French as La pensée straight in 2001.[1] The title essay, "The Straight Mind", was delivered to the Modern Language Association annual convention in 1978.[2]

Summary

In April 1979, Wittig delivered her essay, "The Straight Mind", as the morning keynote address at Barnard College's event, "The Scholar and the Feminist Conference, The Future of Difference".[3] The essay appeared in French in Questions féministes, where the editorial collective, which included Wittig, splintered over "the lesbian question" leading to a dissolution of the collective and end to the publication.[4] It also appeared in English in Feminist Issues.[5]

"One Is Not Born a Woman", delivered in September 1979 at the "30th Anniversary Conference of the Second Sex" held at New York University, takes up the outcomes of Simone de Beauvoir's feminist political visions for lesbians.[6] Wittig writes "Lesbians Are Not Women" under the assumption that the term "woman" is defined by men.[7] Moreover, she compares lesbians to fugitive slaves.[8]

"The Trojan Horse" explains her theory of literature as a "war machine",[9] echoing Gilles Deleuze.[10]

References
  1. Brad Epps and Jonathan Katz, 'Monique Wittig's Materialist Utopia and Radical Critique', Monique Wittig: At the Crossroads of Criticism, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, special issue, Duke University Press, 2007, page 424
  2. Wittig, Monique (February 1980). "La pensée straight" [The Straight Mind]. Questions Féministes (7). fn 9, p.52. JSTOR 40619186.
  3. West, Lois A. (1979). "French Feminist Theorists & Psychoanalytic Theory". Off Our Backs. 9 (7): 4–23. JSTOR 25773119.
  4. Shaktini, Namascar, ed. On Monique Wittig: Theoretical, Political, And Literary Essays (University of Illinois Press, 2005). ISBN 9780252029844. page 9.
  5. "The Straight Mind.' Feminist Issues 1. no. 1 (Summer 1980): 108-111.
  6. Brad Epps and Jonathan Katz, 'Monique Wittig's Materialist Utopia and Radical Critique', Monique Wittig: At the Crossroads of Criticism, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, special issue, Duke University Press, 2007, page 438
  7. Brad Epps and Jonathan Katz, 'Monique Wittig's Materialist Utopia and Radical Critique', Monique Wittig: At the Crossroads of Criticism, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, special issue, Duke University Press, 2007, page 425
  8. Monique Wittig, 67, Feminist Writer, Dies, by Douglas Martin, January 12, 2003, New York Times
  9. Brad Epps and Jonathan Katz, 'Monique Wittig's Materialist Utopia and Radical Critique', Monique Wittig: At the Crossroads of Criticism, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, special issue, Duke University Press, 2007, page 442
  10. Alice Jardine, 'Thinking Wittig's Differences; "Or, Failing That, Invent"', Monique Wittig: At the Crossroads of Criticism, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, special issue, Duke University Press, 2007, page 459


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