Political responsibility, 1987, n. 5-6

EDITORIAL, Political responsibility, pp. 5-8

Reference to life, at once a political and affective locus, has been an issue in the culture of women's movement, and the bond between affectivity and politics may be equated with the one between interior change and the social word: these are the premises of an enquiry into the tie between life, production of theory and political practice. Every theory (and the ensuing practice) cannot but take upon itself a political responsibility whose innermost significance lies in the necessity of creating conditions which, hypotetically, grant all women the transit from belonging to femininity to belonging to a feminine "political gender". A community of women is therefore fundamental not only to meet individual adventures and to cast meaning on them, but also to allow for multiplying female figures thus permitting disequality to act along non-disciplinary modes.

PUTINO Angela, Jumping, pp. 9-15

Three points of reflection: "thinking for/by oneself" as the founding stone of responsibility in the territory of women's thought; "squaring up to", that is conjugating responsibility and self-assertion, calling into question the collective female subject; "on the tragic, and yet on the comic as well", where political responsibility means also escaping the domain of imposed laws, disobeying and at the same time escaping the pain it could entail.

SBISA' Marina, Theorizing. What's a stake, pp. 16-28

The terms theory and responsibility are examined, and their implications spelled out, in the perspective of the philosophy of language; there follows an articulate exposition of the forms and consequences of "the responsibilities of theory" towards one's sex and in relation to sexual difference, when it is women who produce theory and when such theorizing is based on one's experience, on one's life.

MULVEY Laura, Time's heavy shadow, pp. 29-36

Corpus, the first part of Mary Kelly's Interim project, is here presented, as well as the way it relates to women's experiments with language and image and the debate about them. It is also a bird's eye view of the ideas and results of women artists who have been engaged in feminism from the seventies to present time: hypotheses for a new aesthetics and its possible ties with women's experience - interpreted through data from psychoanalysis - as well as with Mary Kelly's individual route as an artist.

KELLY Mary, Corpus, p. 37-44

Some images - six plates - are here presented of Corpus, the first section of Interim, a work of art whose purpose is to investigate into the passage into middle age, built as it is around four recurrent themes: body, money, history and power.

TURCO Livia, Bonds of love, pp. 45-50

An analysis on two levels of the meaning of responsibility, and of political responsibility, for a woman, and for a woman holding a post in the hierarchy of a traditional left-wing political party. The question is addressed in strongly subjective terms, retracing a personally experienced ideal and ideological itinerary.

GAIOTTI DE BIASE Paola, On one's own shoulders, pp. 51-58

A reflection on the meaning of responsibility in connection to her choices is linked for the author to her becoming politically aware and engaged in the early forties, in the midst of the crisis of Italian fascism. This autobiographical approach leads on to a more general evaluation of "political responsibility", or rather of "responsibility in politics", particularly for women.

ROSE Hilary, Questions and answers: almost a confession, pp. 58-64

Searching for a definition of political responsibility for her self as a woman and as a scientist, the author comes to retrace some episodes in her life, wherein lays for her the link between knowledge, politics and responsibility. With reference to her own work in feminist epistemology, she also outlines first a comparison of feminist and marxist critiques of science, and then the present situation in the field, where different approaches coexist and enrich one another.

MURARO Luisa, Commentary to Clarice Lispector's Passion, pp. 65-78

Lispector's text is defined as "extraphilosophical", not belonging to the recognised history of philosophical reflection, its underlying thought being as ancient as its expulsion. The philosophical speculation it engenders concerns the theoretical assumptions of a confrontation of woman with a "measure" not defined in relation to male thought; a "divine measure", rooted in the infinity of desire and of the subject's need to exist. The symbology of the cross is re-read in this perspective through a critical re-examination of significant philosophical and literary moments and figures.

FAZIO Ida, Honour and history in Mediterranean societies, pp. 79-80

The problems emerging from the congress on "Honour and history in Mediterranean societies" held in Palermo on December 3-5 1987 and organized by Arcidonna and the Palermo city council are here reviewed. The issue's current interest is underlined as well as the way codes of honour have differed and changed in various historical periods and cultural contexts.