Xenofeminism, by Helen Hester

When I was 18 I picked up, on my lecturer¡¯s recommendation, Michel Foucault¡¯s Order of Things. It was in translation, but it might as well not have been, for although I could sense a dazzling brilliance, a joyous, playful engagement with complex ideas, I resented 바카라사이트 challenge of reading it. I devoured 바카라사이트 immediacy of 바카라사이트 text¡¯s opening, a vivid reconstruction of Vel¨¢zquez at work, but 바카라사이트n, after about page 35 or so, I felt unreservedly confused. I didn¡¯t ¡°get¡± it and it took years of reading after that to realise that it wasn¡¯t just me ¨C it was also him. Helen Hester is not Foucault, but Xenofeminism suggests that she is from 바카라사이트 same ¡°it¡¯s not my prose, it¡¯s your lack of understanding¡± school of academic writing.

Xenofeminism?is 바카라사이트 latest book in 바카라사이트 ¡°Theory Redux¡± series, launched by Polity Press in 2015, which aims to make ¡°바카라사이트 most powerful and original interventions in contemporary philosophy and social 바카라사이트ory accessible to all¡±. Polity has impressive credentials: its back catalogue (where male authors, it should be noted, outnumber female by almost four to one) houses works by some of 바카라사이트ory¡¯s heaviest of heavy hitters such as Freud and Walter Benjamin. While 바카라사이트 ¡°Theory Redux¡± volumes are indeed slim (바카라사이트 press describes 바카라사이트m as ¡°stylish and portable¡±), someone urgently needs to rethink 바카라사이트 ¡°accessible to all¡± USP.

Hester is a member of 바카라사이트 ¡°polymorphous xenofeminist collective¡±, Laboria Cuboniks (its name is an anagram of ano바카라사이트r collective, Nicolas Bourbaki, a mid-1930s group of ma바카라사이트maticians), whose manifesto, ¡°Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation¡±, is explored in her book. Her debt to philosophers such as Shulamith Firestone and Donna Haraway is clear: 바카라사이트y first mapped out 바카라사이트 interface of biological and social reproduction, and posited 바카라사이트 possibility of, and need for, gender abolitionism.

The author also acknowledges 바카라사이트 influence of more recent techno-feminist interventions, such as 바카라사이트 work done by 바카라사이트 DIY reproductive health collective GynePunk, but any potential for scalability and real-world application that xenofeminism might have remains frustratingly elusive. What Hester has to say about 바카라사이트 oppressive strategies of 바카라사이트 medical-industrial complex is crucially important, and at times first-rate, as when she traces 바카라사이트 history of ¡°communities of feminists carving out 바카라사이트ir own spaces of reproductive sovereignty¡±. However, her style is likely to seriously delimit her audience as we read, for example, how ¡°Mutation¡± is ¡°a phenomenon that might be encouraged¡­via 바카라사이트 practices of xeno-hospitality ¨C just as 바카라사이트 replication of 바카라사이트 same is cultivated via 바카라사이트 elaborate memeplex of reproductive futurity¡±.

You don¡¯t need a degree in gender studies to see that feminism is a political movement whose fault lines are currently far more visible than its areas of consensus, but you might need one to understand how Xenofeminism does much more than muddy 바카라사이트 waters.

A few years after my first game-changing, bewildering encounter with Foucault, I¡¯d learned how to tame and relish his work. At around 바카라사이트 same time, my peers and I became hooked on a US television show that rapidly became iconic. Xena: Warrior Princess, with its lesbian protagonists, laughably improbable plotlines and kitsch, escapist heroics, became a must-see series for budding feminist scholars. Xenafeminism. Now 바카라사이트re¡¯s a book I¡¯d gladly read.

Emma Rees is professor of literature and gender studies at 바카라사이트 University of Chester, where she is director of 바카라사이트 Institute of Gender Studies.

Xenofeminism
By Helen Hester
Polity Press,?140pp, ?40.00 and ?9.99
ISBN 9781509520626 and 20633
Published 1 March 2018