Becoming Undone: Darwinian Reflections on Life, Politics, and ArtIn Becoming Undone, Elizabeth Grosz addresses three related concepts—life, politics, and art—by exploring the implications of Charles Darwin’s account of the evolution of species. Challenging characterizations of Darwin’s work as a form of genetic determinism, Grosz shows that his writing reveals an insistence on the difference between natural selection and sexual selection, the principles that regulate survival and attractiveness, respectively. Sexual selection complicates natural selection by introducing aesthetic factors and the expression of individual will, desire, or pleasure. Grosz explores how Darwin’s theory of sexual selection transforms philosophy, our understanding of humanity in its male and female forms, our ideas of political relations, and our concepts of art. Connecting the naturalist’s work to the writings of Bergson, Deleuze, and Irigaray, she outlines a postmodern Darwinism that understands all of life as forms of competing and coordinating modes of openness. Although feminists have been suspicious of the concepts of nature and biology central to Darwin’s work, Grosz proposes that his writings are a rich resource for developing a more politicized, radical, and far-reaching feminist understanding of matter, nature, biology, time, and becoming. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Human and Inhuman Becomings | 9 |
A New Kind of Feminism | 57 |
Part III Animals Sex and Art | 113 |
Notes | 203 |
245 | |
255 | |
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Becoming Undone: Darwinian Reflections on Life, Politics, and Art Elizabeth Grosz No preview available - 2011 |
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activities acts affirms appeal artists attractive barnacles beauty becoming bees Bergson biology bodily body capacity claims consciousness contemporary Creative culture Darwin Darwinian Deleuze and Guattari Deleuze's Derrida Descent developed differentiation directed discernment duration dynamic elaboration emergence enable ence ethnic evolution evolutionary existence explore Félix Guattari female feminism feminist theory feminist thought forces forms freedom function future gender Gilbert Simondon Gilles Deleuze hermaphroditic human Ibid identity individual insects intensifies intersectionality intuition invention Irigaray Irigaray's kind Kiwirrkura language linked living Luce Irigaray male material matter modes movement natural selection nonliving objects ontology organs Origin of Species painting Papunya Tula particular patriarchy philosophy Pintupi political position possible production qualities question race relations reproduction resonance sexes sexual difference sexual selection social sociobiology space species structure struggle survival territory things Thousand Plateaus tion transformation Translated Uexküll Umwelt understood University variation various virtual woman women writings