Changing Difference

Catherine Malabou is Professor of Philosophy at Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University London

• Translator's PrefaceInsertIntroduction The Meaning of the "Feminine" Admiring the Wonders of Difference Why the "Feminine"? Isn't the privilege of the feminine determined by a particular situation of "woman"?The Vulva's Schema The Dangers of Deneutralizing Difference, or the Ambivalence of the Feminine The Neuter and EvilGrammatology and Plasticity The Phoenix, The Spider and The Salamander Woman's Possibility, Philosophy's ImpossibilityActing As If Acting Together Acting Without

"Complex and suggestive … Malabou's concept of plasticity has considerable potential to advance our thinking about gender and essentialism."http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2012/05/15/book-review-changing-difference-catherine-malabou/"LSE Review of Books"Confronting the current anti-essentialist doxa, Malabou claims for woman an essence that is never more itself than when it escapes its own clutches. This essentialism is not merely tactical or pragmatic, it is a bold philosophical position that gives back to feminism its prematurely sacrificed reason to be. A rare book, one of the few in history, in which philosophy rises to the challenges posed by sexual difference."Professor Joan Copjec, University of Buffalo "Changing Difference will introduce many new readers to the remarkable work of Catherine Malabou. It extends the profound philosophical iconoclasm of her readings of Derrida, Hegel and Heidegger and her emergent thought of plasticity to an encounter with queer and gender theory on the question of ontological and sexual difference. Yet it is above all a passionate and inspiring meditation on 'what, for a woman, is the life of a philosopher'."Professor Howard Caygill, Kingston University London