Variable bodies or, the body variable, 1994, n. 24

EDITORIAL, Variable bodies or, the body variable, pp. 2-6

A fundamental intuition and awareness originated in and by the feminist movement, was that it was necessary to listen to our "body", in order to acquire or recover an autonomous and subjective point of view also on that very body. Before (instead of) accepting or discussing the legal regulation of our bodies, it is time to look back at that intuition, taking into account the changes brought about, among other factors, by technology and bio-technology. The end of the body as a deterministic datum - we are thinking of cyborg theory, but also of the new techniques of bodily manipulation - brings us back to the central question of the relationship body/language.

PUTINO Angela, Disciplined Bodies, Vexed Bodies, Desiring Bodies, pp. 7-17

The author first retraces Foucault's analysis of institutions and their history, focusing upon its two key questions: the issue of power and that of sexuality. This brief reconsideration of Foucault's work is the starting point of a critical reading of some developments of the theory of sexual difference. Especially in Irigaray's later writings, a position seems to emerge, according to which female identity coincides with the discourse about sex; thus, the theme of sexuality might once again be inscribed in the given symbolic order. "Sex as a signifier charged with meaning is the privileged site; therefore, sooner or later, the couple will inevitably, become the focus of attention, in accordance with a constant feature of Western thought. An already posited sexual identity finds its other (clearly consequential) point of reference: man".

BOTTI Caterina, Is there anyone who coincides with their body?, pp. 18-27

This paper is part of a larger research project on bioethics, personal identity and biological identity, financed by the Italian Consiglio Nazionale della Ricerca. Botti criticise the teleology of certain visions of the human body, having as her point of reference the philosophical thought of some feminist theoreticians: the section published here focuses particularly upon Donna Haraway's contribution in this field.

DI GENOVA Arianna, Amazons of Virtual Reality, pp. 28-32

The author looks at a new figure, the woman who makes use of all the possibilities opened up by informatics, who is familiar and at ease with the technological deceives available in that field: the Amazon of virtual reality. This figure displaces our binary conception of sexuality, and therefore a whole cultural framework and symbolic order. Di Genova appreciates these new possibilities, the new and rich scenario they create, but she is also aware of the theoretical questions and political dangers that go with it: "what will happen regarding our responsibility for our experiences in the relationship with the other?".

COZZI Donatella, The ventriloquous body, pp. 33-49

Drawing upon a research carried out in a mental Day Hospital, the author focuses on the relationship between women and depression, looking at it on two different levels. "On the one hand there is what the women say about themselves, who come to the Day Hospital as suffering from depression: how they tell the story of their experience of this illness, organising their narration around the two axes of a suffering body and of a social identity which is not any more the traditional one, but has developed within the traditional framework. On the other hand, there are the ways in which these experiences and narrations are not listened to and are silenced when they meet with the more authoritative knowledge called upon to answer them".

MILLETTI Nerina, Analogous Obscenities. Tribades, Sapphians, Homosexuals: Sex-Gender Systems and Categories in the Journal of Criminal Anthropology Founded by Cesare Lombroso (1880-1949), pp. 50-122

The author considers same-sex erotic attraction to be trans-historical and trans-cultural, whereas its manifestations, meanings and social implications differ in relation to the varying cultural settings. In analysing the journal founded by Lombroso in 1880 ("Archivio di psichiatria, antropologia criminale e scienze penali per servire allo studio dell'uomo alienato e delinquente": Archives of psychiatry, criminal anthropology and penal sciences, to help the study of mentally alienated and delinquent man ), she looks at it both as a structure which exemplifies the cultural positivist scenario, and as a source of lesbian representations and self-representations. As a structure, since the journal linked institutions (asylums, gaols, universities, tribunals etc.) and disciplines (anthropology, medicine, law, sociology, psychology, chemistry, zoology etc.) to culture, politics and the legislative action of the State. As a source, since in the journal one can retrace lesbian narratives and differences, albeit through the scientist's eye and prejudice. It is only very seldom that lesbian historiography can avoid using male sources; this paper shows how fruitful such use can be, in order to focus on a dialectics thus defined by Milletti: "Having a sex, a gender, a sexual identity, requires a self-attribution on the part of the individual, who shapes behaviours which will be read, interpreted and judged as evidence of one's belonging to one or another category".