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 WSIF-01921; No of Pages 2
Women's Studies International Forum xxx (2016) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Women's Studies International Forum

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wsif

1 Book Review

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2Q1 Gut feminism, Elizabeth A. Wilson, Durham & London, Duke turned outward and directed to the object of love, Gut Feminism 46
3 University Press, 2015, 240 pages, ISBN 978–0-8223-5970-8 explores “biological events that show evidence of a biological 47
unconscious, a biology that could be in a forlorn and destructive 48

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4 In her new book, Gut Feminism, Elizabeth A. Wilson argues relation to itself and the world” (p.70). Expanding Karl 49
5 for a more in-depth use and understanding of biological data Abraham's concept of “organ speech”, Wilson makes the 50
6 entanglement of psyche and soma more explicit to suggest 51

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within feminist theory. Gut Feminism explores contemporary
7 melancholia as entanglements of effects, ideations, nerves, the psychically animated nature of biological substrata, 52
8 sociality, pills, and synaptic biochemistry, not with the proposing organ speech as a biological performance that not 53

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9 intention of creating a theory of depression but rather to only symbolizes but also enacts aggressive and sadistic 54
10 exemplify how innovative readings of biological data consequences in- and out-wards. Gut feminism exalts how this 55
11 (especially in relation to the gut) could be highly beneficial to outward turn of hostility is the mark of every political action, 56

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12 the development of feminist theory. Using psychoanalytic making clear that negativity is intrinsic to sociality and 57
13 theory, affect theory, feminist and queer theory and contem- subjectivity. 58
14 porary neuroscientific data, Wilson discusses the vulnerability In the final three chapters the book elaborates on another 59
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15 of feminist politics as an antibiological venue and exemplifies problem regarding feminist theory and biology: the rise of the 60
16 how innovative readings of biology could represent relevant so-called neuroscientific turn in the critical humanities and 61
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17 and pertinent gains for feminist theory and its current activist social sciences in the last decade. Wilson argues for a more 62
18 politics. peripheral, less brain-centered understanding of the minded 63
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19 In the first chapter, Gut Feminism analyzes two canonical body, as mentioned earlier, but she also explores new readings 64
20 essays in feminist theory written by Gayle Rubin to trace one of the pharmacology of SSRI antidepressants. Analyzing the 65
21 route by which biology was dismissed from being a source of relation between pills and metabolism, medication and 66
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22 explanation and became a site of political vulnerability within psychotherapy, placebo and medication, and cure and harm, 67
23 feminist theory. According to Wilson, feminist politics have Gut Feminism expands the complexity of biology and feminist 68
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24 been built (in most of the cases) upon an antibiologism theory in their interpretations of the bodily minded nature of 69
25 framework that both limits and legitimates feminist theory. contemporary depression and exalts that feminist politics “are 70
26 Suggesting the urge for a more in-depth understanding of most effective not when they transform the destructive into the 71
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27 biological data within feminism, the second chapter of Gut productive, but when they are able to tolerate their own 72
28 Feminism explores how the “gut” and “depression” could be capacity for harm” (p.6). 73
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29 analyzed from an innovative angle using two theoretical Wilson's proposal is absolutely pertinent within contempo- 74
30 approaches. First, Wilson aims at reading studies in biology rary feminist debates. Assuming an in-between posture within 75
31 and neurosciences not from a brain-centered approach, but biology vs. antibiology and neuro-enthusiast vs. neuro-skeptical 76
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32 from a perspective that starts from the neurological periphery, debates, Gut Feminism explores innovative and complex 77
33 using Melanie Klein's proposals of a psychic nature of the readings of biology, pharmacology and neuroscientific data, 78
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34 organic interior. Wilson then introduces the biological uncon- suggesting relevant dissonant hypotheses that could be tested
35 scious, a concept developed by Sandor Ferenczi, to demonstrate in other feminist venues. Although Wilson includes a wide 80
36 that biology could be much more dynamic than feminists have variety of theoretical approaches and data in her analysis, it 81
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37 presumed. With this analysis, the author seeks to demonstrate could have been more illustrative to include further current 82
38 how biological data can be used to think about minded and feminist approaches related to the key topics discussed in the 83
39 bodily states. book; this would not only point out what feminist theory is 84
40 The third chapter of Gut Feminism calls attention to some missing from using and interpreting biology data, but rather 85
41 recent conceptualizations of the productive possibilities for would also suggest some initial but valuable new interpretative 86
42 negative states of being. Wilson argues that some destructive paths for feminist theoretical work. 87
43 and damaging aspects of feminist politics cannot be assumed Gut Feminism is a valuable read for everyone interested 88
44 and interpreted as positive outcomes. Conceiving melancholia in finding links between biology and socio-constructionist 89
45 as aggression turned inward but also as sadistic impulses approaches within feminist theory. The content and language 90

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2016.02.008
0277-5395/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
 2 Book Review

91 of the text suggest that it is clearly directed to experts in the edge, but also in proposing innovative and exciting under- 99
92 field of psychology, psychoanalysis, neuropsychology, psychi- standings of the human body and its performative relation to 100
93 atry, or medicine. Although very well written, the combination the world. 101
94 between specialized terminology and the theoretical frame- 102
95 works mobilized, could be demanding for readers less familiar Melissa Chacón 103
96 with the area and trained in different disciplines. Overall, Utrecht University, The Netherlands 104
97 Gut Feminism constitutes a relevant contribution to current
98 feminist theory, not only in deconstructing scientific knowl- Available online xxxx 105
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