ANGEL AK I

journal of the theoretical humanities

volume 13 number 2 august 2008

ver thirty years ago Miche`le Le Duff

coined the phrase the Heloise complex
to refer to a certain kind of erotico-theoretical
transference between a philosopher and his
disciple or student.1 Although this transference
is not restricted to women, their structural
position in this drama is not identical to that of
men. The possibility of taking over the position
of the one who knows, to become the master in
ones turn, is open to men at least in principle
but closed to women. Hence the complex, if
not the transference, is sex specific. Why is the
position of master or philosopher all but
closed to women? In bare outline, Le Duff s
thesis is that womens access to the position of
the one who knows can be blocked in at least
two ways: first, the philosophical imaginary is
structured such that women are associated not
with the subject of knowing but with the objects
of knowledge (e.g., nature, embodiment, the
passions); and second, institutional structures and
sexed norms historically have functioned to
exclude women from, for example, learning
Latin, or entering university. In her early account
of this complex Le Duff referred to Hipparchia
and Crates, Heloise and Abelard, Princess
Elisabeth and Descartes, and Simone de
Beauvoir and Sartre. In each case, a woman
who was not able to enjoy an independent access
to philosophy (in general) comes to fulfil the role
of admiring pupil, reflecting back to the master
the completeness and authority of his (particular)
philosophy.
Over a decade later, in Hipparchias Choice
(1990), Le Duff revised her original notion of
the Heloise complex in a way that allowed for

EDITORIAL
INTRODUCTION
moira gatens
RE-COUPLING GENDER
AND GENRE
greater complexity and historical variation.
The relevant point here is a revision to her
earlier view: Le Duff now notes that the
Heloise complex seems not to be so crippling as
I formerly meant it to appear and she asks:
can one escape it [the Heloise complex] on the
quiet and produce philosophy independently, on
condition of course that one does not attempt
to pose as a philosopher? (165). In the case of
de Beauvoir, Le Duff thinks that she did
produce philosophy. But she did not see
herself doing it (164). Did de Beauvoir
produce philosophy or literature? And what

ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN1469-2899 online/08/020001^3 2008 Taylor & Francis and the Editors of Angelaki
DOI: 10.1080/09697250802432039

re-coupling gender and genre

hangs on the difference? If we consider
philosophical writing and literary writing as
distinct genres, are these genres inevitably
gendered? Is philosophical writing intrinsically
a masculine genre and literature, mutatis
mutandis, feminine?2
For several papers in this special issue, the
questions raised above were the starting point for
a consideration of the relationship between
gender, genre and philosophical writing within
specific historical periods (see Deslauriers,
Spongberg, Gatens, and Colebrook). Each paper
casts new light on assumptions that have been
taken for granted in standard accounts of the
gendergenre relation.
Other contributors might be seen to be asking
the question: does something like the Heloise
complex hold true across genres understood in a
much broader sense? For example, can one
discern its operations in theatre or art? Do these
cultural practices also generate exclusive imaginaries and engage in normative practices that
function to hierarchize one genre over another
(see McGill and Vernallis, respectively)?
Furthermore, what can be said about the coupling
of genre and gender in same-sex relationships, or
in the triadic relation between gender, theory and
race (see Braidotti and Goswami, respectively)?
Finally, what light can a psychoanalytic perspective throw on the gendergenre couple (see
Kordela)? Even as some papers make constructive use of Le Duffs path-breaking research,
they also gesture towards alternative paths of
inquiry, thereby suggesting the importance of
attending to the historical and political contexts
in which genre and gender are interwoven.
Hayden White has observed that
[p]rior to the nineteenth century, English used
the term gender to refer to all kinds of
genericizations, including the sexual. The
recovery of the French word genres to
refer to the kinds of literature had the effect of
suggesting that the production of literary
genres was a special case of genderization
and removing the sexual connotation from the
activity of genre-making.3

One striking common element to emerge in the

various studies presented here is the creativity of

both same-sex and inter-sex friendships and their

power to (re)produce genre in innovative ways.
Friendship, it seems, can provide a space in
which experimental cultural forms can escape
from the mere reproduction of the same
through a fertile re-coupling of gender and
genre.
. . .
I would like to thank participants of the Gender
Genre workshop, University of Sydney, 2006, and
participants of The Scene of Writing symposium, Centre for the Humanities, Utrecht
University, March 2008. I am very grateful to
Rex Butler, Ewa Ziarek, Rosi Braidotti, Doro
Wiese, Paul Patton, Daniel ONeill, Candace
Vogler, Jennifer Bajorek, Donna-Dale Marcano,
Liedeke Plate, Mary Spongberg, Claire
Colebrook, Margaret Harris, Amanda Hickling
and Anneke Smelik for their advice, criticism and
encouragement. I have been fortunate to be a
Fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin while
completing this special issue. Research for this
project was made possible by an Australian
Research Council grant (DP0665045) for which
I am thankful. Finally, my warm
thanks to James Hypher for his
exemplary
and
expeditious
copyediting.

notes
1 See Cheveux longs, idees courtes in
LImaginaire philosophique (Paris: Payot, 1980).
Translated by Colin Gordon as Long Hair,
Short Ideas in The Philosophical Imaginary
(London: Athlone, 1989). An English translation
of an earlier version of this chapter appeared
as Woman and Philosophy, Radical Philosophy
17 (summer 1977): 2^11. See also Hipparchias
Choice: An Essay Concerning Women, Philosophy
etc., trans. Trista Selous (Oxford: Blackwell,
1990).
2 There is a program available online that claims
to be able to predict with some accuracy the
gender of authors who submit a piece of writing.
One is asked to select the genre of that writing:
fiction or non-fiction. See 5http://bookblog.
net/gender/genie.php4.

gatens
3 Hayden White, Commentary: Good of their
Kind, New Literary History 34 (2003): 367^76
(376 fn. 3).

Moira Gatens
SOPHI, Faculty of Arts
Main Quad A14
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
Australia
E-mail: Moira.Gatens@arts.usyd.edu.au