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Hannah Arendt, Feminism, and the Politics of Alterity: "What Will We Lose If We Win?" Author(s): Joanne Cutting-Gray Source: Hypatia, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter, 1993), pp. 35-54 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Hypatia, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810300 Accessed: 10/12/2010 19:56
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HannahArendt,Feminism, andthe Politicsof Alterity: "WhatWill WeLoseIfWeWin?"

JOANNE CUTTING-GRAY

an eighteenth-century HannahArendt'searly biography of RahelVarnhagen, to a In German-Jew, feminist component herpolitical provides revolutionary theory. with the theoretical constitution a and Arendt relates it, grapples of femalesubject to feminist sheunderstood andhistory the Jewish alterity, identity, politics.Because the as to rather than condition" an subject of difference belonging political "female her a with autonomous entails self, theory of alterity" "politics applications for practice. feminist

means admittingat the outset To talk about Hannah Arendt's"feminism" that she was strongly against "isms"of any kind, said little about women's issues,and sparkedcontroversywhen she did. As political philosopher,theorist, and historian, she tackled thorny issues with alacrity;as a woman she Evenwhen her analysesreflecta personal addressed genderrelationsindirectly. and by extension a sense of female difference, sense of Jewish "pariahhood," she resolutelykept her privateopinions hidden fromthe public gaze.She felt that so-called publicity,like the notoriety abouther youthfullove affairwith politics by directing attention away from action or Heidegger,"trivialized" deeds.1 "world-historical" To considerArendt'sworkexclusivelyin the context of her seeming indifference to feminism is to risk underestimatingher qualities as a feminist thinker. Her largely unwritten understandingof the "female condition," for its time in that gleanedfrompersonalstoriesabouther, was revolutionary she implicitlyunderstood(female) alterityas belongingto the public person, her biographer, not an autonomous,private self.2 Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, observes that Arendt was against divorcing women's issues from broader political concerns:"Incipientin her criticismof the women'smovement is the vol. 8, no. 1 (Winter 1993) byJoanne Cutting-Gray Hypatia

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distinction she later drew between social questionsand political questionsthe latter,she held, should be the focus of action" (Young-Bruehl 1982, 97).3 However, to offer Arendt'sprivatelyheld opinions about women's issues never offered (opinions in that Arendt never presentedthem systematically, them for public debate) as the basisof a formalfeminist theory,would betray herown wish to keepher closelyheld thoughtsintimate4-unless a connection can be found between her personalexperienceand publicdiscourse.That link is provided by her early and little-known biographyon the life of Rahel Vamhagen,an eighteenth-centuryGerman-Jew.5 may be a misnoBiography heart of the the work is neither nor character but, most impormer; history self. As a critique, for feminist a of the individualistic politics, critique tantly it serves the role of philosophy in carefullyanalyzingthe human political condition, a condition not limited to a Jewish or female incarnation of it. Further,it provides us with a model or conceptual structurethat aids our of any political group.Becausethis unusualworkgrapples with understanding the theoretical constitution of a female subject,it entails-more than any of Arendt's other works-a "politics of alterity"with striking applicationsfor feministpractice. Writing the biographyenabled the youthful Arendt to distinguish the unique, distinct person from the egocentric individual, isolated, inherently storytaughtArendt private,and social. In fact,JewishhistoryandVarnhagen's that any grouplinked togetherby personalsympathyalone does not answerto the need for a political community. It helped her to conceptualize how a community of sympathetic selves could lose its platformfor action.6To be individualmust effective politically the distinction betweenpublicandprivate a psychologicalproblem be maintained.In other words,by making"alterity" rather than a unique political resource,a sympatheticsisterhooderases the historicallyspecific differencesof race, ethnicity, and gender. The following discussionof subjectivityin the Vamhagen biographywill enable us to explore the relations among difference, identity, and political community. From it we can develop the political concepts that Arendt generatedand offera constructivecriticismof a sisterhoodbasedin naturalized gender difference, shared sympathyor shared suffering.The power of the biographylies in an analogy between Jewish and female alterity,an analogy that in spite of its obvious dangerscan stretch our understandingof women and politics.

Three anecdotes provide the context for our discussionof the Varnhagen biography by relatingJewishalterity,identity,and historyto feministpolitics. They serve to illustratethe essentiallypolitical concerns that Arendt developed from her study of Rahel Varnhagen-concerns pertinent not only to

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feminismbut to any political group:the first, political judgment-to understand carefullyand respectfully things quite other fromourselves;the second, the political subject-to shapeourdistinctnessand individualityin speechand action with othersratherthan in eccentricdisplaysof singularbehavior;third, political practice-to test continually the adequacyof our political concepts actions. in particular The first anecdote has to do with a note Arendt once passedto her friend Hiram Haydn during a discussion of women's liberation at the American Scholar's editorialboardmeeting in 1972.The note quipped,"the realquestion to ask is, what will we lose if we win?"(Young-Bruehl 1982, 513). The view is in it Arendt that the commonsense assumptions questions quintessentially that skip over phenomenahidden by the familiar. Later,in telling Haydnthat was "well-considered," she identifies what for her lies at the her "wisecrack" heart of critical thinking, namely, seeing the "doublenessof all things," openness to multiple and opposingperspectives.Elsewhereshe reflects that "the experiencesbehind even the most worn-outconcepts remainvalid and and reactualized if one wishesto escapecertaingeneralizamustbe recaptured tions that have provenpernicious" 1982,325). In this instance, (Young-Bruehl her "realquestion"aboutwinningandlosingappliesto the familiarassumption that revolution means only liberationfrom the "worn-outconcepts" about them politically. genderratherthan freedomto transform The second anecdote illustratesArendt'sresistanceto being identifiedas a woman exceptional to her gender.As the firstwoman appointedto the rank of full professorat Princeton,she evoked more than usualattention fromthe media. When in 1959 the universityemphasized her genderin pressreleases, she threatened to turn down the position. To an interviewerwho raisedthe "Iam not disturbed she responded: questionof woman-professor-as-exception at all aboutbeing a womanprofessor becauseI amquiteusedto being a woman" (Young-Bruehl1982, 272-73). The answereffectively separatesgenderfrom accomplishment,cautions those who make a categorymistake in confusing the two issues,and demonstrates her insistence that distinguishingherselfin deedsof excellence doesnot meanbeing inherently andessentially differentfrom others. The third anecdote links the question of identity and alterity to local political conditions. In the sameyearArendt went to Hamburgto accept the LessingPrize-surely a moralvictoryfor a Germanphilosopherwho was also a womanand a Jew.In the Lessingaddress, Arendtrecalledwith characteristic frankness the recent German past, her flight from Nazism at the age of twenty-seven, and her attitude about living "in darktimes"where "honors" wereno partof her birthright,and whereit wouldnot be surprising if "wewere no longer capableof the openness and trustfulness that are needed simply to accept gratefullywhat the world offersin good faith" (1968, 17). Thus she made explicit the facticity of the identity given to her by history,telling her

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audience that for many yearsshe consideredthe "only adequatereply to the question, Who are you? to be: A Jew" (1968, 17). She added by way of definition that a Jew was not a specialhumanbeing markedfor distinction by history,but a "politicalfact . .. which ... outweighedall other questionsof personal identity or rather had decided them in favor of anonymity, of namelessness"(1968, 18). She put forwarda simple principle that underlay her attitude:"one can resistonly in termsof the identity that is underattack." These anecdotesresonatewith Arendt'scharacteristic attention to existenand suggestthat tial and political conditions, to the concrete and particular, the politicsof judgment, the chief themesof her philosophy-human plurality, public freedom-grew out of her active engagementwith the "politicalfact" of the questionof identity,a questionchosen forher by history.They also help explain why Jewishness had "outweighed all other questions of personal problemthan whatshe called identity"andhadposedforher a moreimmediate "the woman question."7It is not surprisingthat she found in the story of kindredspirit Rahel Varnhagennot only the solace but also the insight that enabledher to bearthe burdenof her own identity.The political realityof her Jewishnessfirst confronted her within a few years of her love affair with Heidegger (1925). Stirredby their break-upand Heidegger'seventual foray into Nazism, she found consolation in the Varnhagen story of an overly introspectivewoman like herselfat the time, one who overcameself-absorption in orderto discoverher "un-selfed" political identity.8The metaphorof be as self-absorbed subjectmay thoughtof asplayinga hypothetical Vanhagen similar to that of the chief characterin a Sartreannovel: it role explanatory servesto illustrateconcretelysome philosophicalconcepts. Becausethe biographyanticipatesthe issuesthat Arendt would analyzein her later works,we can trace a "politicsof alterity"in it retrospectively. II. Rahel Levin Varnhagen (1771-1833) presided in Berlin over the most famousGermanintellectualsalon of the late eighteenth century(1790-1806). The society comprisingthe salon wasprivateand romanticallyindividualistic, on the fringe of society"yet not sharing"anyof its conventions "established or prejudices" (1974, 59). The salon formeda kind of "neutralzone"outside the realm of political action and consisted of outsiders (1974, 58). In this privatesociety enchanted with eccentricity,Vamhagen, "not rich, not cultivated, and not beautiful"(1974, 6), symbolizedotherness.Her effortwas "to expose herself to life so that it could strike her 'like a storm without an umbrella'" (1974, xvi). The sheer spectacle of such an exotic and intense characterdrew aristocrats, intellectuals,and artiststo what was only a garret. There the capacity for life and a passionateintelligence found an outlet of To those attractedby Varnhagen's magneexpressionin a cult of personality.

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that she single-handedly initiatedthe "Goethecult" tismit came as no surprise of self-absorbed,romantic individuals and thereby significantly influenced GermanRomanticism. acceptanceinto privatesocietywasnot, as she believed, merely Varnhagen's a caprice of fate but, as Arendt detects, a direct result of Jewish assimilation under Enlightenmenthumanism.In the Prussiabefore that time, only Jews who had wealth were tolerated;economic influence enabled them to enjoy with the nobilityandclassidentitywith the bourgeoisie, businessrelationships social without though acceptance (1974, xvii, 6). With the rise of Romantiintellectuals wanted "proofs" of their own humanityand saw however, cism, in the Jew a more exotic, more alien, occasion for humanism.Jewswho were accepted were to be exceptions, like Jews yet not like them, for the "exceptional"had to stand out fromTheJew conceived negatively as a race. With growingacceptanceJews began to understandtheir identity no longer in terms of creed, faith, and culturebut as a differencein their inner nature (the psychological,"worldalienated"self; (1973, xii). In other words,Jews who assimilatedinto society did so at the cost of repudiatingtheir tradition and sacrificingtheir collective political effectiveness. In this shifting social milieau,Rahel appearedto others as an exceptional exception. Varnhagenwas one of manywho felt her Jewishpast to be both incomprehensible and personallydebilitating.Ignorantof her traditions-"she learned nothing, neither her own historynor that of the countryin which her family dwelt" (1974, 4)-she saw herself as a blank slate, her present horribly confined by the limits of self, her futurewithout hope. She thought of herself as an impermeableentity whose appearanceonly served to keep her "real" content hidden fromview: "Ifonly I could throw myselfopen to people as a cupboardis opened, and with one gestureshow the things arrangedin order in their compartments" (1974, 19). As an effort to negate fate, assimilation seemed to promiseher acceptanceinto society,but at the price of extirpating herdifferencefromothers.Isolation,on the otherhand, maintained Jewishness but also turnedit into a "personal" misfortune: Jewishnessbecame a private, inner concer (1974, 7). Under such a notion of the individual, she could understandJewishness only as a personal problem belonging to the self. Assimilationversusisolation, a problemnot just limited to Jewsas a group,is exacerbatedby individualism. Becausethis ego-centeredaspectof the atomistic individualalso relatesto the questionof feminine identityand assimilation, we will returnto it at a laterpoint in the discussion. Arendt particularizes Vamhagen'sdilemma by describing it as a choice between the way of "pariahor of parvenu." The pariahmaintainsdifference but at the cost of sociality and ordinary political resources,while the parvenu abandons an oppositional political agenda, direction, and desire for equal her "personal rights.In attemptingto breakinto societyandescapeJewishness, learnsthat becominga parvenumeansnot just living, misfortune," Varnhagen

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but being, a lie: "Rahel's struggleagainstthe facts,above all againstthe fact of having been bor a Jew, very rapidlybecame a struggleagainst herself. She herselfrefusedto consent to herself;she, bor to so many disadvantages, had to deny,change, reshapeby lies this self of hers, since she could not very well denyher existence out of hand"(1974, 13). Everydesire,everynaturalaffinity, everypolitical practicehad to be sacrificedto the only goal Varnhagencould have, namely,the social acceptanceof one solitaryindividual.Arendt draws the salient political conclusion that romanticindividualismseversitself from politics and turns the social group into a collection of private selves. This all-importantdistinction between the social and political subject becomes criticalfor describingpolitical action. Even though the society of the salon had promisedlimited acceptance into a group,its configurationwas privateand individualistic,not communaland wasconceived not in termsof "others" but ratherin terms public."Otherness" wasautonomous,there was of other self-containedegos. Becauseeach "other" of manythinkingvoices. As a result, no opportunityfor the political pluralism the inherently frail salon collapsed from the pressureof an insistent world: "Thesalon in which privatethingsweregiven objectivityby being communicated, and in which public matterscounted only insofaras they had private significance-this salon ceased to exist when the public world, the power of general misfortune, become so overwhelming that it could no longer be translatedinto privateterms"(1974, 122). felt an even greaterneed of the salon (1806), Varnhagen After the breakup to escape her Jewishness.In desperationshe was baptized,changed her name to Antonie Friedericke Robert,and marrieda Gentile-only to be ostracized In the processshe had sacrificedany political action for the againas a pariah.9 sake of individualistic display, being the exception to a collective Jewish identity. In other words,seeing differenceas a personalproblemdetermined that both ways, pariah and parvenu, would fail. Arendt explains that Varnhagen's "uniqueattemptto establisha sociallife outsideof officialsociety" was a failure,"the way of the pariahand the parvenuequallywaysof extreme solitude, and the way of conformismone of constant regret"(1974, 66). Her point is that Vamhagen'sromanticsense of self-whether Jewishor femaleconceived in psychological or behavioristic terms, thwarted real political action and generatedher alienation:"The historyof any given personalityis far older than the individual as product of nature, begins long before the individual's life, andcan fosterordestroythe elementsof naturein his heritage" (1974, 4). sense of her Jewishness-"I can ... derive every Entangledin Varnhagen's (1974, 7)-was her belief that evil, everymisfortune, everyvexation fromthat" female "otherness" compoundedan alreadyintolerablecondition. While we can be cautiousaboutan analogybetweenfeminineandJewishalterity,history itself conflated the two into an all-encompassing,negative otherness. The

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link between feminine and Jewish biographysuggeststhat an extraordinary in German was confirmed history:the changing status of Jews and alterity women representedto the conservativesthe most threateningliberaltendenIn orderto protest the salons both run by and cies of the Enlightenment.1 the new nationalistic,ethnicallypureGermangroupsdirected includingJews, their anger at womenin general (Hertz 1988, 253). Thus, antifeminismtook the sameformas anti-Semitism.The privatesalon brokeup underthe pressure of a public consciouslyunited in being "intellectuallyagainstthe Enlightenment, politically againstFrance,and socially againstthe salons"(1974, 124). Fromthe descriptionof Varhagen, we can begin to tracesome conceptual analoguesbetween Jewishothernessand the responseto it and female otherness and its relation to politics. First,to conceive everythingoutside oneself as a threatis to banishdifferenceforthe sakeof the falsecomfortof an inviolate self. Such a position evacuatesthe messy,heterogeneousworldfor the unitary samenessthat seeks consolation fromit. The contingent worldis now viewed as a hostile other. Second, the historicalpast is more than the collected acts of individualpsyches.To conceive of it otherwisedenies the realapprehension and significanceof personsother than oneself, denies their boundless,indefinable substantiality.For women, choosing between pariah and parvenu, between maintainingpolitical differenceor choosing social assimilation,is a paralleldilemma. Arendt addresses the firstpoint in The HumanCondition (1958) when she describes how alteritasor otherness belongs to everything, not just to the Because all our definitions and concepts are distinctions-we marginalized. what it fromother things-difference is our somethingis by distinguishing say humancondition (1958, 176). However,respectforothersquite differentfrom ourselvescan only be generatedin the publicarenaof "humanplurality" when we are free from external necessity and inner compulsion.That is, "alterity" reconceived in termsof multiplicityopens the possibilityfor the community of plurality,a coalitional politics basedon difference. With respect to the second point about social conformism, when the marginalized relinquishthe political demandof respectfor othernessfor the sake of fulfillingprivatedesiresor seeking full social assimilation,they invite discrimination.Arendt is claiming no less than that romantic individualism sows the seeds of its own rejection. Rahel learned that "puresubjectivity" which bearsa worldin itself is doomedbecause"thisinner worldis never able to replace what is merely given to human beings" (1974, 118). Arendt challengesthat formof individualism disguisedas a sympatheticsisterhoodor brotherhoodand consistingonly of a collection of world-alienated"selves."

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III. I have consideredArendt'sperspectiveon femaleothernessand Jewishness in the light of her own personalinterestin Vamhagen.Now I will look at her thought simply as philosophy in the sense of developing a structuralor hypothetical frameworkthat can be applied to problems inherent in any While Vamhagen's life illustrates a woman's politicalorganization. perspective on a period of assimilationand romanticismin German-Jewish history,the heart of the biographyis neither history,character,nor even Jewishnessbut, most importantlyfor feministpolitics, a critiqueof individualsubjectivity.As critique,it does what all good philosophydoes: it reflectssystematically upon the human condition. It providesus with a model or structureof the political group,one that servesas a powerfulmetaphor.It appliesthat model, not only oreven necessarilyto justan actualhistoricalexample-for example,a specific feminist theory of the subject or actual feminist political group-but to any groupcalling itselfpolitical.1 In otherwords,it providesa powerfulconceptual the political. as an aid to understanding framework That critiqueis centralto a politics of alterityand beginswith the historical of alteritas claim that the transformation or otherness into the private selfhood-including the femaleselfhood-parallels the developmentof romantic a subjectivityand a shift in the concept of the private.Varnhagensymbolizes femalestereotypewhen she displaysthe extremityof her othernesswithin the privacyof the salon even asshe rejectsall claimsto publicaction. Arendttraces the ancient Greek roots of the private to the prepoliticalspace occupied by females and slaves who were considered noncitizens when the burden of thwartedtheirpoliticalorpublicdistinction ( 1958, necessityandreproduction 32, 82-85, 119). The female,claimedbythe necessityof reproduction, acquired the characteristicsidentified with the "otherness" belonging to the private came to occupythe "private" othernessessentially, realmand came to represent as both an actualand conceptualspace.Becausepolitics also becameconflated with government,or worse,bureaucratic housekeeping,it wasviewed as taking place somewhere other than work, home, and family. In modern times the privatesphere became an innerspace, no longer ruled, as in the past, by the necessityof survivalbut by inner compulsionsand will. Arendt theorizesdifferencenonessentially,as properlybelongingto persons free from the twofold deprivation of necessity and inner complusion.'2 storyreveals that the egocentricselfhood deprivesone of differVarnhagen's ence, of achieved distinction and the political: To live an entirely private life means above all to be deprived of things essential to a trulyhuman life: to be deprivedof the reality that comes from being seen and heard by others, to be deprived of an 'objective'relationshipwith them that comes

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from being related to and separatedfrom them through the of a common world of things, to be deprivedof intermediary the possibilityof achieving something more permanent than life itself. The deprivation of privacylies in the absenceof others. (1958, 58; italics added) Arendt furtherdescribesthis privativeretreatinto the selfhood as an "inner a pervasivephenomenon of the twentieth centurythat produces emigration," "the modern individualand his endless conflicts, his inability either to be at home in society or to live outside it altogether,his ever-changingmoods and the radicalsubjectivismof his emotional life .. ." (1958, 39). The "flightinto the self" abjurespolitics (1968, 19) with the resultthat one behaves as if she were no longer a citizen of a political orderin the world. Arendt's conclusions are sobering, for they imply no less than that the configurationof our subjectivity,how we become persons, determines the absence or presence of any real political action. Because action takes place betweenpersons, it requiresa preservedpublic space for deeds and achievements that give meaningto everyday In otherwords,the isolated relationships. selfhoodbelongsto the activity and sphereof workand labor(now the social) but not to that of action-the spaceof wordsand deeds.13 While laborinsures survivaland workproduceshumanartifacts,only action engagesin "founding and preservingpolitical bodies, [and]createsthe condition for remembrance, that is for history"(1958, 9). Thus action does not radiatefromthe individual self but arisesin a networkof interdependent forcesthat preventsany act from the intention of an agenttowarda realizable being merely straightforward goal. A "selfhood,"on the other hand, thinks to protect her impermeabilityby negatinghistory,her oppressivepast, and eschewingcommunalrelationships, her unfortunatepresent. When she must maintain her "individuality" at all costs, all others will appearas external threatsthat she must guardagainstor control.Paradoxically, pressed by innernecessity,seeingpoweras an individual that must be possession protected,and strivingfor the rule of the one, a form of totalitarianism, she cannot achieve political power.In this respect,Arendt implies, a female subject-if conceived autonomouslyas one who wishes to maintaina "naturalized" genderedalterity-perpetuates her own marginalism. She will alwayssee the other as a menacingthreat, a hostile "one"that must be controlled and subsumedor distortedby the consolation of sympathy. What arethe practicalconsequencesforfeminismof a politics and a subject conceived as antithetical to any polity?Can there be a feministpolitics based on the isolated, self-contained psyche?Arendt's answer can be found in a descriptionof how Vamhagen's"grandmisconception of herself,"the "fatal flaw"of introspection,corrupts political solidarity: Introspectionaccomplishestwo feats:it annihilates the actual existing situationby dissolvingit in mood, and at the sametime

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it lends everythingsubjectivean auraof objectivity,publicity, extreme interest. In mood the boundariesbetween what is intimate and what is public become blurred;intimacies are made public, and public matters can be experienced and expressed only in the realm of the intimate-ultimately, in gossip. (1974, 21) Becauseintrospectionbathes everythingin mood, Varnhagen's relationships were ties of affectivitywith others who sufferedas she did ratherthan bonds of communicativepractice.14 Sharedsympathy, Arendt suggests,is a formof inner compulsion,a facet of the selfhoodthat only seemsto createthe unity of a compassionate sisterhood, when in fact it does the reverse.She describesthe caritas between persecuted peoples as "a greatthing" but not sufficientfor political action: In its full development it can breed a kindliness and sheer goodnessof which human beings are otherwisescarcelycapable. Frequentlyit is also the source of a vitality, a joy in the simplefact of being alive, rathersuggestingthat life comes fully into its own only among those who are, in worldlyterms, the insultedand injured.But in sayingthis we mustnot forgetthat the charmand intensityof the atmosphere that develops is also due to the fact that the pariahsof this world enjoy the great privilege of being unburdenedby care for the world. (1968, 13-14)15 The loss of the common world that Varnhagenexperiencedresultedfrom a that shut out the worldand sympatheticunity with other eccentric "pariahs" off the shut life. political groupformedby political Equallytragic, ultimately, sharingsimilarinner needs may spend much of its energyon deciding who is qualifiedto belong to it (Sawicki 1988, 187). the pullof sympathy Arendt Without underestimating amongthe oppressed, forturningVarnhagen's that the distancerequired privatefeelingsinto suggests action could not depend on an exclusive, sharedsuffering.The point political is that neither sentiment nor any formof affectivehumanismcan be a viable basis for politics: "The rationalism and sentimentalism of the eighteenth centuryareonly two aspectsof the samething;both could lead equallyto that feel ties of brotherhoodto all men. In enthusiasticexcess in which individuals any case this rationalityand sentimentalitywere only psychologicalsubstitutes, localizedin the realmof invisibility,for the loss of the common, visible world"(1968, 16). In other words,both the rationaland the sentimentalmask fromthe atomistic tied to feelingandradiating a formof apoliticalbehaviorism self.

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In On Revolution (1963), Arendt extends her insights about the affective the selfhood to modernliberationmovementsto show that private of makeup sentiment corrupts,if not effectuallysubverts,the concept of freedom.In the contrastbetween the French and American revolutions,she charts the way amongpersecuted peopleswho lack citizensympatheticbrotherhoodappears the French added When Revolution ship. fraternityto the political concepts of liberty and equality,the emphasison public freedomsand human rights shifted to private civil liberties.Driven by internal need instead of common weal, fraternitypressesfor libertiesat the expense of rights,privatehappiness overpublic well-being.16 becomesa legitimate Consequently, pity forsuffering motive. this of political By tying understanding fraternityto Rousseauian sentiment, Arendt reveals by implication the privative character of any sisterhoodwhich seeks to abolish the pain and sufferingof the marginalized rather than make them citizens responsibleand strong enough to bear the A sympatheticsisterhoodcan breed"kindliness," burdenof freedom.17 "goodness,""vitalityandjoy,"but it doesnot answerto the need fora feministpolitical community. of Varnhagenrecordsthe earlynineteeth-century Although the biography failureof assimilation,the rise of anti-Semitism,and the retreatfrompolitics into individualalienation,it is not a storyof a politicalfailurenor by extension that of a failed female. Arendt describesthe debilitating effects of Rahel's individualism-discrimination, exile, and despair-as fortuitousevents that at last forced Varnhagento recognizethe political dimensionsof life. Where Varnhagenhad once found inner consolation in Goethe, now she came to discoverin his worksa universaldescriptionof her fate ratherthan a lonely forher solipsisticdespair. She learnedthat othernessandsuffering are platform not just the personalmisfortuneof the Jew or the female. humanconditions, And like Lessing,she learnedthat thought"doesnot ariseout of the individual and is not the manifestationof a self. Rather,the individual . . . elects such thoughtbecausehe discoversin thinkinganothermodeof movingin the world in freedom"(1968, 9). Others and othernessbecame related to her as more than other selves who exact a personalprice.Throughpublicdiscourse(in this case, literature),she beganto see othersas constitutiveof her own personhood: to life becauseeverything'personal,' "She knew it was senselessto be superior and the personal alone, stood for something more than itself" (1974, 174). What changed wasnot merelyher consciousnessof a personalconversionbut also, more radical,the configurationof her personhood. IV. How does a transformation of female subjectivityoccur in one who conothernessaspersonalfate, andaction asbehavior? ceives of self as autonomous, Arendt's answer is startling and portentous:Varnhagencame resolutely to

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apprehend the historical conditions of Jews and women-anti-Semitism, Herextreme inner isolation,her retreatfrom antifeminism,and pariahhood.18 the world into self, her repudiationof collective history-all these effortsto negate her Jewishnesshad merelyaffirmedit (1974, 221). The more she had refusedto translatepersonaldesiresinto politicallyidentifiableterms,to share or identifywith the historicaltreatmentof Jews,the more typicallyJewishher fate had become:"She had walkeddown all roadsthat could lead her into the alien world, and upon all these roadsshe had left her track, had converted them into Jewishroads,pariahroads;ultimatelyher whole life had become a She is transformed from (1974, 222).19 segmentof Jewishhistoryin Germany" isolatedself to personhoodby virtueof seeing "self"as being intertwinedwith others and not by remainingsingular(1974, 118). Fromthe perspectiveof her commonJewishrootsforgedof culture,religion, andhistory,Varnhagenrecognizedthat "onedoes not escapeJewishness." The one who seeks social acceptance or consensusattemptsto banish difference, for assimilation means appeasementfor the sake of sameness, or even the formofegalitarianism. leveling down of differencethroughthe mosttyrannical By extension, neither does one escape femaleness. Arendt suggests that a political agendawhich obliterateswomen'shistoricaland culturaldifferences by surrendering history to the immediate thrill of its own sufferingmerely grindsdifferenceinto dust,into the historyof sameness.In contrast,seeing the differenceof all thingsthroughouralteritas of differences, opensus to a plurality This insightinto multiplicitysharpens to otherperspectives. the politicaledges of our otherness.That is, our task is one of vision, an open attention to the its inexhaustibledifference,without that continuallyacknowledges particular projectingor imposingoneself so as to obscureit. To hold a clear,steadygaze It means towardthe particular requiresconcepts adequatefor understanding. personsother than oneself as infinitely particular, endlesslyto apprehending be understood. of othernessgeneratedfromthinkArendt felt that the new understanding the transformed not only Varnhagen'ssolitary and writing ing biography into but her own as The awarenessof others and well. insight introspection of modes the between being, differing personsspeakingand acting plurality together,freedher fromher isolation. While all aspectsof the humancondition aresomehowrelated to politics, this pluralityis specificallythecondition-not only the conditiosine qua non, but the conditioper quam-of all political life. . . . Pluralityis the condition of human action becausewe are all the same, that is human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live. (1958, 7-8)

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We are both infinite and yet particular, possessing"the paradoxicalplurality of unique beings" (1958, 176). Paradoxical because we are indefinable, contingent yet particular; unrepresentable, unique but not self-madebecause we are shaped in concert with others. In contrast, an essentialistconcept of or even determinedgender) is reallya form our being (for example, "natural" of identity.Identityreducesall to a false unity, the projectingand controlling self; plurality multiplies our sense of the great variety of the world and in exchangegrantsus ourown uniqueness.In otherwords,if we areonly the same in being different,if we have access to ourselvesonly throughothers within the publicspaceof appearing, then the morewe encounterdifferenceasArendt describesit, the more we have ourselves. her collective fate at the end of According to Arendt, Varnhagenaffirmed her life by saying,"Thething which all my life semedto me the greatestshame, of my life-having been born a Jewesswhich was the miseryand misfortune this I should on no account now wish to have missed"(1974, 3). Her change conferred on her a historical-that is, political-identity: "Rahel had remaineda Jew and pariah.Only becauseshe clung to both conditions did she find a place in the history of Europeanhumanity" (1974, 227). She had overcome her intense subjectivism,exposed herself as a Jew and a woman to the events of history,and founda historicaland thereforepolitical identity in the veryprocessof failingto escapefromdestiny.In other words,the biography abouther "self"to scrutinyand public debate opens Varnhagen's assumptions and illuminatesher morethan any attempton her partto dazzle.It illuminates her throughher failuresand revealsher political being. Equallyimportant,it illuminatesthe critical analoguesArendt generatesfromher story. Varnhagen'sstory provides still another political concept for analyzing feministpractice,the connection of subjectivityto ideology.Differencenaturalizedas the intrinsic "femaleness" of an individual selfhood destroysthe communal characterof women who have had their otherness forged in the crucibleof history.The subjectivismof the individualistic"Vanhagen"obliteratesthe differencethat she seeks to maintain.That is, radicalsubjectivism is a form of ideology, seemingly different,actually an ideology of sameness, Such signalingthe absenceof the "political"in any usefulsense of the term.20 an ideologybanishesother differencesin the interestof unanimity:"A movement ... which does not translateideologyinto concrete goalsthat reflectreal particular changesremainsalienatedfromconcrete life" (Young-Bruehl 1982, 97). The dangerof ideology-one grouppurportingto hold the truth about to an women,for example-is that "everyclaim in the sphereof humanaffairs absolutetruth,whosevalidityneedsno support fromthe sideof opinion, strikes at the very roots of all politics and all governments"(Beiner 1982, 233). Truth-claims to be peremptorily acknowledged-politically correctfeminisms, for example-preclude debate and wither freedom.They threaten feminist politics when they resist self-criticism;the result is that "The Woman,"like

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"The Jew,"again becomes a conceptual void, locus, dispersion,and dissemination of women.21 As an alternativeto an ideologicalexclusivity of sisterhood,Arendt offers anotherhelpfulconcept, "thepoliticalrelevanceof friendship."22 She explains "that humaneness should be sober and cool rather than sentimental; that humanityis exemplifiednot in fraternitybut in friendship;that friendshipis not intimately personalbut makespolitical demandsand preservesreference to the world" (1968, 25). The essence of friendshipshe describesas philia, friendshipamongcitizens in a constant exchange of thought, uniting them in or love of humankind,"manifests itself in a readinessto a polis. Philanthropia, sharethe worldwith other[s]"(1968, 25). The powerof this concept is not in any way diminishedbecausewomen have historicallybeen denied its experience. Such an authentic political friendshipbased on respect rather than or remains "committedto 'ideas' " and dialogue sentiment "comprehends" (1963, 89). Arendt offersa furtherprinciple for feminist action when she applies the politics of alterityto Nazism.Insteadof limiting her action to denouncingthe policies that negatively identifiedher as a Jew,she puts the process of identificationitself in question,forcingthe issueinto the light of humandebate,forcing the darkinhumanityof a single opinion into the bright scrutinyof multiple perspectives.She insists that "truthcan exist only where it is humanizedby discourse": Every truth outside of this area [human debate], no matter whether it bringsmen good or ill, is inhuman .. . not because it might arouse men against one another and separatethem. Quite the contrary,it is because it might have the result that all men would unite in a single opinion, so that out of many opinions one wouldemerge,as thoughnot men in their infinite one speciesand its exemplars, pluralitybut man in the singular, were to inhabit the earth. (1968, 30, 31) In effect, she forces the "singleopinion"of Nazism,of "manin the singular," into the "areain which there aremanyvoices"by sayingto it, "Yes,I'ma Jew; That questionmakesidentity as "sameness" so what does it mean to be a Jew?" an issuefor criticaldebateamongfeminismseven while the most heinous and violent of deeds seem to cry out insteadfor a united, immediatereaction. The point forfeministpolitics is that action is both theoreticalandpractical. As a form of the politics of alterity,theory clears public space of ideology. Becausetheoryis at its heartdialogicaland therefore political,seriousanalytical thinking always has a practical relevance. For Arendt, theory is never an abstractand cold rationality-in fact, by directingher own intensityof feeling she calls "passionate towardthe conceptualizing thinking,"she restorestheory to practice. The theoretical critiqueof policy keeps debate open and creates

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the condition for judgment,an ongoing evaluativeunderstanding freelyopen to debate.23 without Judging,the abilityto discernthe qualitiesof the particular a priorsubsumptionof them undera rule, is linked to disclosurein the public realm.While thinking dealswith invisibles,judgingdealswith things close at or "Woman" hand. If we recognizethat identities like "Jew" are historically constituted, then we can accept their contingency so as not to resist them dialectically.Arendt askswhether we are preparedfor the dissolutionof the female as any set identity;whetherwe maynot be moreeffective politically if we became more concernedwith eliminatingjustice whereverit arises(1958, 188). As a formof the politics of alterity,judgmentcombines theoryand practice when it analyzes the codetermination of genderedrelationships anddismantles the inhibiting polarities (alterity versus identity) of gender in an ongoing debate.Merleau-Ponty writesin the same spiritthat "truelibertytakes others as they are, tries to understandeven those doctrineswhich are its negation, and never allowsitself to judgebeforeunderstanding" (quotedin Beiner 1982, 100). The danger in subsumingparticularexperiences of otherness, as, for example, in promoting a universalfeminism, is that the particularloses its unique differencein the unity of consensus. Finally, applying Arendt's political theory to the refigurationof alterity ascribesa pluralityto the female political subject, a subjectwho historically reflectsupon otherness as contingent and no longer as a totalitarian,hostile other.How does it accomplishsuch goals? First,the politics of alterityradically pluralizesotherness by recognizingthat any attempt to banish, control, or socially engineer difference implicitly bars us from knowing ourselves and others. Second, it opens the public space to these differenceseven among feminismsby encouragingdisagreement and the responsibilityto understand and respectwhat we reject.That meansunderstanding and bearingthe burden of events, neither denying their existence nor submittingto their brutality. Third, a genuine feminist politics of alterity,because it cannot be limited to feminism,implicitlyrespondsto all who have sharedthe historicalcondition of otherness.That is, it recognizes femalealteritynot as belonging exclusively to one special groupor human being markedby historybut as a political and thereforelocally situated"fact"that temporallyoutweighsother questionsof who we are. It suggestsa philosophy,that is, a hypothetical structureof the political,suitedfor a worldin which respectforrightskeepsopen innumerable placesfor the meeting of theoryandpractice.It enablesus to test criticallyour political concepts for adequacyand ensuresthat the political groupdoes not get sidetrackedinto the call for consolation or entangledin what Arendt calls the bureaucratic housekeepingassumedto be politics. This means, for example, that the relations traditionallyreservedfor the private, intimate, and familial can be maintained but must be freed from deprivation, from both necessity and the compulsionsof the psyche. And last, the politics of alterity

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respondsto the facticity of our condition by an ongoing questioningof it. It what it resiststhe ideology that is the negation of alterityby understanding mustjudgewhen it perpetuallyasks,what will we lose if we win?

NOTES 1. Arendt deploredthe moder blurring of publicand privatein "oureagernessto anddiscussed in publicwhat wereonce strictlyprivateaffairs and see recorded, displayed 1982, xvii). Mary Dietz says that for nobody'sbusiness"(as quoted in Young-Bruehl Arendt"thepublicexists in starkcontrastto the privaterealm;it is wherethe revelation of individualityamidst collectivity takes place" (Dietz 1991, 236). As early as 1933 Arendt saw that the privatesphereto which most women are relegateddevaluestheir the life processand bindsaction to laboror production. potentialbecauseit valorizes 2. I useArendt'sterm"alterity" to describethe historicalhumanconditionof being other or different.Alterity that is, diversity, otherness-is not to be confusedwith the terms "difference" and "differdnce" as used in deconstructionto expose the mutual determinationof all hierarchical the state of being oppositions.Arendt sees "alteritas," This uniqueness, otherordifferent,as integralto humanindividuality. revealedin speech fromthe pureparticularity of objects,their distinctionone and action, is distinguished fromanother.She explains the nuancesof the termas follows:"Humandistinctnessis not the sameas otherness-the curious qualityof alteritas possessed by everythingthat is. the reasonwhy all our definitionsare Otherness... is an important aspectof plurality, distinctions.... But only man can expressthis distinctionand distinguishhimself.... In man, otherness,which he shareswith everythingthat is, and distinctness,which he shareswith everythingalive, become uniqueness .... Speech and action reveal this themselvesinsteadof being merely uniquedistinctness.Throughthem, men distinguish distinct"(Arendt 1958, 176). as "hostile"to feminismor even as a 3. Arendt has sometimesbeen misinterpreted a view fails to handle than the content) of termssuch Such the (rather concept misogynist. as public, private,polis, gender,etc. When Arendt distinguishesbetween public and private,she is not simply referringto a specific historicalexample or commonsense of the two termsbut to a concept that can be usedto analyzewhat those understanding has especiallybeen faulted (unfairly,I termsmight encompass.The HumanCondition model to help developherconceptof the polls,claiming think)forusinga Greektheoretical women and slaves, the concept of polls that becausethe actualGreeksdisenfranchised assumes that a philosophis somehownot availableto women.Again, suchan argument or modelcannot be expandedto includean actualhistoricalconditionsuch icalstructure as the disenfranchised woman, alien male, etc., that it cannot articulatea potential Canovanclaimsthat manyof Arendt'scriticsmistakeTheHuman experience.Margaret the wayshe continually of her politicaltheoryand disregard Condition as the summation developedand revisedher thinking (Canovan 1992). I see Arendt as a theoristmost at home with other Continental philosophers-especially Jaspersand Heidegger-who formallyexplore the philosophicalquestion of subjectivityby decenteringBeing and human being. Nonetheless, Arendt creates a productive tension with the French feministswho also explorethe problemof Kristeva,Cixous) and postmodern (Irigaray, gender identity and its relation to subjectivityand practice.See, for example, Linda Nicholson (1990), SusanHekman(1990), andJudithButler(1990).

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that 4. Even beforeArendt wroteher most famouspolitical works,she recognized or bourgeoisis the family the basicunit determiningwomen'slives, whetherproletariat (Young-Bruehl1982, 273) and that intimate familial relations inevitably devalue the family women's conceptionsof societyhadnot included potential.Becausetraditional in the private,prepolitical in its public,liberalthought,the familyremained spaceabsent of public and private from the public. It is importantto keep Arendt'sunderstanding forher,the "private realm" of necessity distinctfromourcommonsense usageof the terms: the functionsof survival,the "household sphere"where the orderof rule encompassed and rulingover held sway.The "publicrealm"was the arenaof freedomand equality where personscould distinguishthemselvesin speech and action (1958, 32). In other words, the "public"was not necessarilyan actual space, the domain of politics or government as we commonly know it, but the space of plurality,any opening for communaldiscourse freefromnecessityand innercompulsion,hence public.According to this definition,Arendt wishedto extend the publicreachof free and equaldiscourse relations of the prepolitical Fora parallel overthe "unfree" view see Maria Markus, family. Successand Civil Society"(in Benhabiband Cornell 1987, 96-109). "Women, 5. RahelVarnhagen: The Lifeof a Jewish Woman (1974) was Arendt'searliestmajor workafterthe writingand publicationof her doctoralthesison Augustine.In Germany, Varnhagenis known by her first name Rahel. ReviewerSybille Bedforddescribesthe as a "relentlessly abstractbook-slow, cluttered,static, curiouslyoppressive; biography readingit feels like sitting in a hot-housewith no watch.One is madeto feel the subject, the waiting, distraughtwoman;one is made aware,almost physically,of her intense (Bedford1958, 24). femininity,her frustration" 6. Arendt contrastedthe individualas a psychologicalentity who reinforcesher of behaviorism with the one who distinguishes herselfby unique egocentrismin displays deedsof excellence and humanachievementin the publicworldof speech and action. JanaSawickialignsthe problemof the atomisticself with "identitypolitics,"describing formof politicsin which individuals the destructive arepreoccupied with their identities morethan with politicalgoals:"Suchidentitypoliticscan be self-defeating insofaras it often leadsto internalstruggles over who reallybelongsto a community" (Sawicki1988, of the prevailing context in whichfeministtheoryisdiscussed, 187).ChrisWeedonspeaks namely "the dominant liberal discourseof the free and self-determiningindividual" with making explicit the (Weedon 1987, 5). She credits feminist post-structualism theoreticalimplicationsof identitypolitics (Weedon1987, 6). 7. IrisYoungcites a similarsituationexistingfor African-American feministswho must first confront the overwhelming"fact"of their race before that of being female that she (Young1990, 10-11). In the early1930'slife alsoforcedArendtto acknowledge waslinked by the historicalconditionsof her birth with the collective fate of the Jews. She ran up againstpoliticalrealityand recoiledfromthe impact.While workingon the she learnedthat the contingenciesof historyselect our political issuesfor us. biography She too came to termswith her own alterityand acceptedpariahhoodby destiny and choice as the broadest senseof"otheress," in effectalwaysunassimilated (Young-Bruehl 1982, xv) and thereforealwayspoliticallyattuned. 8. In "HannahArendt'sRahel Vamhagen" (Cutting-Gray1991), I explorethe way Arendtproblematizes andthe politicsof biography. subjectivity WritingaboutVarhagen and combather own introspective helped Arendt to understand self-absorption, helped her to come to termswith Zionismand Nazism.

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"Ihave to behave towardpeople 9. Varnhagen laterhad this to sayaboutmarriage: in the past I wasnothing, and that is a great as if I were nothing more than my husband; deal"(1974, 210). salon women provokedresentments which contributedto the downfall 10. "Jewish of their salons"(Hertz1988, 253). 11.Arendtembodiesthe exampleof feminismthatNannerlKeohanedescribes when she saysthat "feminist (Keohane1981,vii). Arendt theoryis fundamentally experiential" provides an indissolublelink between experience and theory by bringing powerful conceptsto the aid of evaluatingthe particular. 12.Arendt's feministtheorywouldfinda kinshiptodaywith that of writers likeJudith Butler and Drucilla Cornell who distinguishbetween the specificity of women as constructedby a particular context-Arendt's point aboutthe facticityof an identityand the ahistorical,essentialistaccountsof identity.DianaFussqualifiesthe issuewhen (Fuss1989, xii), i.e., to be historical cautioningthat "thereis no essenceto essentialism" In this way we can flexiblyrespondto the particular, we can only speakof essentialisms. contingentconditionsthat have specificallyidentifiedus as female,Jew,African-Ameras a weaponto destroyone politicsof differenceor ican, etc., without usingessentialism of another. to measure the correctness as a yardstick of classbut as belongingto the 13. Arendtpresentsworkand labornot as constructs in her sense of a private"space" for the activities humancondition. I am using "social" of laborand necessity.Arendt insistedthat only where women act togetherfree from will they generate innernecessityand externalcompulsionin a publicspaceof appearing and achievment (Arendt 1958, 199-208). That is why she arguedagainst individuality womanwho repudiates the context againstwhich an individualis beingthe "exception" measured as the exception. 14. Arendt was initially attracted to a sympatheticfraternity(which she later rejected)becauseof the affinityshe felt with Varnhagen: "Myclosestfriend,thoughshe has been deadfor some one hundredyears" 1982, 56). (Young-Bruehl 15. For a model of political empathyfor a pluralsubject,Arendt at first turnedto Augustine's concept of caritas,which is based upon the compassion between the Varhagen wroteto her friend,Heine. "Onlygalleyslavesknowone another," oppressed: the affectivenatureof compassion,its tendency,like that of fear The Greeksrecognized "the most compassionate to immoblizeus. They regarded personas no moreentitled to becauseboth emotionsmakeaction impossible be called the best than the mostfearful" and that is why Aristotle treatedthem together(Arendt 1968, 15). 16. Arendt emphasizesand supportsa contrasting American emphasis on the of citizens which promotespublic debate and alliances of interestand "illumination" a liberationlimitedto freedomfromnecessity.See (Arendt 1963). than rather purpose can be generalized beforehand: 17. Rousseauis an exampleof how everymisfortune event.What he obliterated of the remembered the contours memory "Bysentimentalizing remainedwere the feelings experiencedin the courseof those events-in other words, is the once more nothing but reflectionswithin the psyche.Sentimentalremembering that the present best methodfor completelyforgettingone'sown destiny.It presupposes the itself is instantly converted into a 'sentimental'past. For Rousseau(Confessions) drawninto the inner and it is immediately presentalwaysfirst risesup out of memory, (Arendt self,whereeverythingis eternallypresentand convertedbackinto potentiality" the distinctionbetweenprivateandpublic 1974, 11). Arendt"wasconcernedto preserve mattersand to show how introspectioncan foreclosepolitical understanding" (YoungBruehl1982, 88).

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in detailin Cutting-Gray 18. I describethe transformation (1991). Hertz(1988) takes senseof Rahel's"conversion"-the distinctionis againconceptversus issuewith Arendt's content (see note 3 above). Arendtobserved 19. Among fellowJewishintellectualsin prewar how the Germany, or poorerbrethrenseveredthem desirefor assimilationand escapefromtheir backward from their traditions.When they refusedto identify with political or revolutionary her movements,anti-Semitismfilled the political vacuum. In striving to understand political condition in 1933, Arendt would later be able to reflecthow antiparticular wasdirectedagainstpeoplewith Semitismcouldreachits climax in Nazism,when terror traitsabstracted fromethnic, religiousand culturaldifferences. commonpsychological 20. Under the Hegelian dialectic of identity and difference.See Lacoue-Labarthe (1990, 81). 21. Alice Jardine'spoint about some postmoderndiscussionsof the feminine in is deterministic charm:it excludesitself (Jardine, 1985).The seductionof deconstruction fromthe fate of the codifiedand allowsforsexismto be born-again. 22. Arendt describeshow Lessingconsidered"friendship-which is as selective as compassionis egalitarian-to be the centralphenomenonin which alone truehumanity can prove itself" (Arendt 1968, 12). In joining the Zionist movement, in writingand she thinking about fellow Jew Varnhagen,in sufferingthe alienation of statelessness, fromits psychological rescuedfriendship it into a solidarity based context, transforming on respectratherthan sympathy. 23. AdmittedlyI am offeringa versionof judgmentthat Arendt left unarticulated at her death. She does, however,link understanding to the evaluativeeffortof judgment and sees criticismas "always and judging sake,understanding takingsidesfor the world's everthingin termsof its position in the worldat any given time"(Arendt 1968, 8).

REFERENCES New York: Arendt,Hannah. [1954]. 1977. Between pastandfuture. Penguin. .1958. Thehuman condition. Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press. . [1963], 1977. On revolution. New York: Penguin. 1968. Men in darktimes. New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich. . 1973. Theorigins New York: HarcourtBraceJovanovich. of totalitarianism. .1974. RahelVarhagen: The Lifeof a Jewishwoman.Trans.Richardand Clara Winston. New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich. .1982. Lectures on Kant's ed. RonaldBeiner.Chicago:Univerpolitical philosophy, sity of ChicagoPress. and destiny.Reconstructionist 12: 22-26. Bedford, Sybille. 1958. Emancipation Arendt: Lectures on Kant's Beiner,Ronald,ed. 1982. Hannah political philosophy. Chicago: Universityof ChicagoPress. as critique. Benhabib,Seyla, and Drucilla Corell, eds. 1987. Feminism Minneapolis: Universityof MinnesotaPress. Feminism and thesubversion New York: Butler,Judith. 1990. Gendertrouble: of identity. Routledge. 1992. Hannah Arendt. Canovan,Margaret. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress. accommodation: Ethical andthe Corell, Drucilla.1991. Beyond deconstruction, feminism, law.New York: Routledge.

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andLiteraJoanne. 1991. HannahArendt'sRahel Varnhagen. Cutting-Gray, Philosophy ture15: 229-45. and interpretations Dietz,MaryG. 1991.HannahArendtandfeministpolitics.In Feminist political theory,ed. MaryLyndonShanley and Carole Pateman.University Park: State UniversityPress. Pennsylvania New York: Fuss, Diana. 1989. Essentially Feminism,natureand difference. speaking: Routledge. andknowldege: Elements Boston: Hekman,Susan. 1990. Gender of a postmoden feminism. Northeastern Press. University in oldregime Berlin. New Haven:YaleUniversity Hertz,Deborah.1988.Jewish high society Press. Alice. 1985. Gynesis: andmodernity. IthacaNY:Cornell Jardine, of woman configurations UniversityPress. a critique Keohane,Nannerl,ed. 1981.Feminist theory: Chicago:Universityof of ideology. ChicagoPress. artandpolitics. Trans.ChrisTurner. Oxford: Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe.1990. Heidegger, BasilBlackwell. New York: Nicholson, Linda,ed. 1990. Feminism/postmodemism. Routledge. andFoucault, ed. Sawicki,Jana.1988. Identitypoliticsand sexualfreedom.In Feminism IreneDiamondand Lee Quinby.Boston:Northeastern UniversityPress. andpoststructuralist London:Basil BlackWeedon,Chris. 1987. Feminist practice theory. well. infeminist likea girlandother andsocialtheory. essays Young,Iris.1990.Throwing philosophy IndianaUniversityPress. Bloomington: Elisabeth.1982. Hannah Arendt:For loveof theworld.New Haven:Yale Young-Bruehl, UniversityPress.