The Portable Cixous

Hélène Cixous is one of the twentieth century's most influential theorists, genre-defying writers, and groundbreaking playwrights. Her work has been translated into almost a dozen languages and touches on every facet of our lives& mdash; dreams, sex, relationships, identity, our conception of reality, and our attempts at defining the self. As her close companion Jacques Derrida once pointed out, however, a "profound misunderstanding" of Cixous persists among her fans. Many readers know little of her work beyond theoretical texts and miss out on the innovator's idiosyncratic mix of autobiographical and fictional narrative combined with philosophical and poetic reflections. Providing a truly liberal selection of Cixous's writings from throughout the intellectual's career, Marta Segarra rediscovers Cixous's remarkable acts of invention for a new generation. Divided into six thematic parts (writing and dreaming in the feminine, Algeria and Germany, love and the other, the animal, Derrida, and the theater of Hélène Cixous), with critical essays introducing each group, this anthology fully captures Cixous's genius for merging fiction, theory, and living in her writing. Her work defies classification and locks literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis into thrilling new patterns of engagement. Whether readers are familiar with Cixous's work or are approaching her for the first time, all will find fascinating new perspectives on gender, fiction, theater, theory, and Jewish and postcolonial identities.

contents

Hélène Cixous: Blood and Language  I

WRITING AND DREAMING THE FEMININE  17

1. The Laugh of the Medusa (1975)  27

2. Coming to Writing (1976)  40

3. Tales of Sexual Difference (1990)  48

THE ORIGINS: ALGERIA AND GERMANY  61

4. A Real Garden (1971)  71

5. Osnabrück (1999)  78

6. Letter-Beings and Time (2007)  85

LOVE (AND) THE OTHER  97

7. Lemonade Everything Was So Infinite (1982)  107

8. Love of the Wolf (1994)  118

9. On February 12, I committed an error (2005)  135

THE ANIMAL  143

10. Dedication to the Ostrich (1988) 153

11. Messiah (1996)  165

12. My Three-Legged Dog (2000)  173

DERRIDA  181

13. Second Skin (2001)  191

14. On style (A Question to H. Cixous and J. Derrida) (2004)  199

15. "Today" (2006)  207

THE THEATER OF HÉLÈNE CIXOUS: REMEMBERINGS, REFASHIONINGS, AND REVENANATS, Judith G. Miller  215

16. The Name of Oedipus: Song of the Forbidden Body, Twelfth Movement (1979)  225

17. The Indiad or India of Their Dreams, act I, scene 2 (1988)  236

18. Rouen, the Thirtieth Night of May '31, Vignette 4: the Trial (2001)  250

19. The Blindfolded Fiancée or Amelait, Scenes 5 and 6 (2004)  257