Grosz gives a critical overview of Lacan's work from a feminist perspective. Discussing previous attempts to give a feminist reading of his work, she argues for women's autonomy based on an indifference to the Lacanian phallus.

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Product Description: With the advent of the new millennium, the notion of the future, and of time in general, has taken on greater significance in postmodern thought. Although the equally pervasive and abstract concept of space has generated a vast body of disciplines, time, and the related idea of "becoming" (transforming, mutating, and metamorphosing) have until now received little theoretical attention...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

"The location of the author's investigations, the body itself rather than the sphere of subjective representations of self and of function in cultures, is wholly new...I believe this work will be a landmark in future feminist thinking."- Alphonso Lingis. "This is a text of rare erudition and intellectual force. It will not only introduce feminists to an enriching set of theoretical perspectives but sets a high critical standard for feminist dialogues on the status of the body."- Judith Butler. "Volatile Bodies' demonstrates that the sexually specific body is socially constructed: biology or nature is not opposed to or in conflict with culture. Human biology is inherently social and has no pure or natural 'origin' outside of culture. Being the raw material of social and cultural organization, it is 'incomplete' and thus subject to the endless rewriting and social inscription that constitute all sign systems. Examining the theories of Freud, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, etc. on the subject of the body, Elizabeth Grosz concludes that the body they theorize is male. These thinkers are not providing an account of 'human' corporeality but of male corporeality. Grosz then turns to corporeal experiences unique to women-menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, and menopause. Her examination of female experience lays the groundwork for developing theories of sexed corporeality rather than merely rectifying flawed models of male theorists. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Introducing the work of three French feminists - Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and Michele L Doeuff - Sexual Subversions provides access to the work of these writers. In doing so this book raises some key issues of relevance to feminist research, addressing debates around the nature of feminist theory; the relationship between feminist thinking theory; the relationship between feminist thinking and male-dominated areas of knowledge; the strategies appropriate for developing non-patriarchal or woman-centered knowledges...read more