Rosi Braidotti
Encyclopedia
Rosi Braidotti
is a contemporary philosopher and feminist theoretician.
and grew up in Australia
, where she received degrees from the Australian National University
in Canberra
in 1977 and was awarded the University Medal in Philosophy and the University Tillyard prize. Braidotti then moved on to do her doctoral work at the Sorbonne
, where she received her degree in philosophy in 1981. She has taught at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands since 1988, when she was appointed as the founding professor in women's studies. In 1995 she became the founding Director of the Netherlands research school of Women's Studies, a position she held till 2005. Braidotti is a pioneer in European Women's Studies: she founded the inter-university SOCRATES network NOISE and the Thematic Network for Women's Studies ATHENA, which she directed till 2005. She was a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College
in 2005-6; a Jean Monnet professor at the European University Institute in Florence in 2002-3 and a fellow in the school of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1994. Braidotti is currently Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Utrecht University and founding Director of the Centre for the Humanities.
Braidotti’s publications have consistently been placed in continental philosophy, at the intersection with social and political theory, cultural politics, gender, feminist theory and ethnicity studies. The core of her interdisciplinary work consists of four interconnected monographs on the constitution of contemporary subjectivity, with special emphasis on the concept of difference within the history of European philosophy and political theory. Braidotti’s philosophical project investigates how to think difference positively, which means moving beyond the dialectics that both opposes it and thus links it by negation to the notion of sameness. This is evidenced in the philosophical agenda set in her first book Patterns of Dissonance: An Essay on Women in Contemporary French Philosophy, 1991, which gets developed further in the trilogy that follows. In the next book, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory, 1994, the question is formulated in more concrete terms: can gender, ethnic, cultural or European differences be understood outside the straightjacket of hierarchy and binary opposition? Thus the following volume, Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming, 2002, analyses not only gender differences, but also more categorical binary distinctions between self and other, European and foreign, human and non-human (animal/ environmental/ technological others). The conclusion is that a systematic ambivalence structures contemporary cultural representations of the globalised, technologically mediated, ethnically mixed, gender-aware world we now inhabit. The question consequently arises of what it takes to produce adequate cultural and political representations of a fast-changing world and move closer to Spinozist notions of adequate understanding. The ethical dimension of Braidotti’s work on difference comes to the fore in the last volume of the trilogy, Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics, 2006. Here she surveys the different ethical approaches that can be produced by taking difference and diversity as the main point of reference and conclude that there is much to be gained by suspending belief that political participation, moral empathy and social cohesion can only be produced on the basis of the notion of recognition of sameness. Braidotti makes a case for an alternative view on subjectivity, ethics and emancipation and pitches diversity against the postmodernist risk of cultural relativism while also standing against the tenets of liberal individualism. Throughout her work, Braidotti asserts and demonstrates the importance of combining theoretical concerns with a serious commitment to producing socially and politically relevant scholarship that contributes to making a difference in the world. Braidotti's output also included several edited volumes. Her work has been translated in a total of 19 languages and all the main books in at least three languages other than English.
Influenced by philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze
and especially "French feminist" thinker Luce Irigaray
, Braidotti has brought postmodern feminism
into the Information Age
with her considerations of cyberspace, prosthesis, and the materiality of difference. Braidotti also considers how ideas of gender difference can affect our sense of the human/animal and human/machine divides. Braidotti has also pioneered European perspectives in feminist philosophy and practice and has been influential on [third-wave as well as post-secular feminisms].
On 3 March 2005, Braidotti was honored with a Royal Knighthood from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands; in August 2006 she received the University Medal from the University of Lodz in Poland and she was awarded an Honorary Degree in Philosophy from Helsinki University in May 2007. In 2009, she was elected Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
is a contemporary philosopher and feminist theoretician.
Biography
Braidotti, who holds Italian and Australian citizenship, was born in ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and grew up in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, where she received degrees from the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
in Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
in 1977 and was awarded the University Medal in Philosophy and the University Tillyard prize. Braidotti then moved on to do her doctoral work at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
, where she received her degree in philosophy in 1981. She has taught at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands since 1988, when she was appointed as the founding professor in women's studies. In 1995 she became the founding Director of the Netherlands research school of Women's Studies, a position she held till 2005. Braidotti is a pioneer in European Women's Studies: she founded the inter-university SOCRATES network NOISE and the Thematic Network for Women's Studies ATHENA, which she directed till 2005. She was a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College
Birkbeck, University of London
Birkbeck, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is...
in 2005-6; a Jean Monnet professor at the European University Institute in Florence in 2002-3 and a fellow in the school of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1994. Braidotti is currently Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Utrecht University and founding Director of the Centre for the Humanities.
Braidotti’s publications have consistently been placed in continental philosophy, at the intersection with social and political theory, cultural politics, gender, feminist theory and ethnicity studies. The core of her interdisciplinary work consists of four interconnected monographs on the constitution of contemporary subjectivity, with special emphasis on the concept of difference within the history of European philosophy and political theory. Braidotti’s philosophical project investigates how to think difference positively, which means moving beyond the dialectics that both opposes it and thus links it by negation to the notion of sameness. This is evidenced in the philosophical agenda set in her first book Patterns of Dissonance: An Essay on Women in Contemporary French Philosophy, 1991, which gets developed further in the trilogy that follows. In the next book, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory, 1994, the question is formulated in more concrete terms: can gender, ethnic, cultural or European differences be understood outside the straightjacket of hierarchy and binary opposition? Thus the following volume, Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming, 2002, analyses not only gender differences, but also more categorical binary distinctions between self and other, European and foreign, human and non-human (animal/ environmental/ technological others). The conclusion is that a systematic ambivalence structures contemporary cultural representations of the globalised, technologically mediated, ethnically mixed, gender-aware world we now inhabit. The question consequently arises of what it takes to produce adequate cultural and political representations of a fast-changing world and move closer to Spinozist notions of adequate understanding. The ethical dimension of Braidotti’s work on difference comes to the fore in the last volume of the trilogy, Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics, 2006. Here she surveys the different ethical approaches that can be produced by taking difference and diversity as the main point of reference and conclude that there is much to be gained by suspending belief that political participation, moral empathy and social cohesion can only be produced on the basis of the notion of recognition of sameness. Braidotti makes a case for an alternative view on subjectivity, ethics and emancipation and pitches diversity against the postmodernist risk of cultural relativism while also standing against the tenets of liberal individualism. Throughout her work, Braidotti asserts and demonstrates the importance of combining theoretical concerns with a serious commitment to producing socially and politically relevant scholarship that contributes to making a difference in the world. Braidotti's output also included several edited volumes. Her work has been translated in a total of 19 languages and all the main books in at least three languages other than English.
Influenced by philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
and especially "French feminist" thinker Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray is a Belgian feminist, philosopher, linguist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and cultural theorist. She is best known for her works Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not One .-Biography:...
, Braidotti has brought postmodern feminism
Postmodern feminism
Postmodern feminism is an approach to feminist theory that incorporates postmodern and post-structuralist theory.-Origins and theory:The largest departure from other branches of feminism is the argument that sex is itself constructed through language, a view most notably propounded in Judith...
into the Information Age
Information Age
The Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Digital Age, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously...
with her considerations of cyberspace, prosthesis, and the materiality of difference. Braidotti also considers how ideas of gender difference can affect our sense of the human/animal and human/machine divides. Braidotti has also pioneered European perspectives in feminist philosophy and practice and has been influential on [third-wave as well as post-secular feminisms].
On 3 March 2005, Braidotti was honored with a Royal Knighthood from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands; in August 2006 she received the University Medal from the University of Lodz in Poland and she was awarded an Honorary Degree in Philosophy from Helsinki University in May 2007. In 2009, she was elected Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Books
- 2009, La philosophie, là où on ne l’attend pas, Paris: Larousse, pp. 286.
- 2007, Egy nomád térképei. Feminizmus a posztmodern után, Budapest: Balassi Kiado, pp. 137.
- 2006, Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics, Cambridge: Polity Press pp. 304.
- 2004, Feminismo, diferencia sexual y subjetividad nomade, Barcelona: Gedisa, pp. 234.
- 2004, Op doorreis: nomadisch denken in de 21ste eeuw, Amsterdam: Boom, pp. 298.
- 2003, Baby Boomers: Vite parallele dagli anni Cinquanta ai cinquant’anni, Florence: Giunti, pp. 191.
- 2002, Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming, Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 317.
- 2002, Nuovi soggetti nomadi, Roma: Luca Sossella editore, pp. 201.
- 1996, Madri, Mostri e Macchine, Rome: Manifesto Libri, With postface by Anna Maria Crispino. Second edition, revised and enlarged, 2005.
- 1994, Nomadic Subjects. Embodiment and Sexual difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. Cambridge: Columbia University Press, pp. 326.
- 1994, Co-authored with Ewa Charkiewicz, Sabine Hausler and Saskia Wieringa: Women, the Environ¬ment and Sustainable Development. Towards a Theoretical Synthesis, London: Zed Books, pp. 220.
- 1991, Patterns of Dissonance: an Essay on Women in Contemporary French Philo¬sophy,: Cambridge: Polity Press; USA: Routledge, pp. 316. Second edition: 1996.
Edited Volumes
- The History of Continental Philosophy Volume 7, Durham: Acumen, 2010, pp. 398.
- (Ed. with Claire Colebrook and Patrick Hanafin) Deleuze and Law. Forensic Futures, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 212.
- (Ed. with Claire Colebrook) special edition of Australian Feminist Studies, on: “Feminist Timelines’, Routledge Volume 24 Issue 59, 2009, pp. 142.
- (Ed. with Charles Esche and Maria Hlavajova) Citizens and Subjects: The Netherlands, for example, Critical Reader/Catalogue for the Dutch Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice, 2007 Utrecht: BAK and Zurich: JRP, pp. 334.
- (Ed. with Gabriele Griffin) Thinking Differently: a Reader in European Women’s Studies, London / New York: Zed Books, 2002, pp. 405.
- (Ed. with Nina Lykke) Between Monsters, Goddesses and Cyborgs. Feminist Confrontations With Science, Medicine and Cyberspace.London: Zed Books, 1996, pp. 260.
- (Ed. with Gloria Wekker) Praten in het donker. Multiculturalisme en anti-racisme in feministisch perspectief. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1996, pp. 170.
- Poste restante. Feministische berichten aan het postmoderne. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1994, pp. 157.
- (Ed. with Suzette Haaksma), Ik denk dus zij is; De vrouwelijke intellectueel in literair en historisch perspectief, Kampen: Kok Agora, 1994, pp. 199.
- Een beeld van een vrouw. De visualisering van het vrouwelijke in een postmoderne cultuur, Kampen: Kok Agora, 1993, pp. 188.
- Guest editor of special issue of the journal Women's Studies International Forum. Special issue: Women's Studies at the University of Utrecht New York: Pergamon Press, 1993, vol. 16, no. 4.
- Guest Editor of special issue of the journal Les Cahiers du Grif. De la parenté à l'eugénisme Paris: Editions Tierce, 1987, no. 36.
Transpositions
- Italian translation: Trasposizioni. Sull’etica nomade, Roma: Luca Sosella Editore, 2008, pp. 343.
- Spanish translation: Transposiciones, Barcelona: Gedisa, 2009, pp. 414.
Metamorphoses
- Italian translation: In Metamorfosi, Milano: Feltrinelli, 2003.
- Spanish translation: Metamorfosis. Hacia una teoria materialista del devenir, Madrid: Akal Ediciones, 2005
Nomadic Subjects
- Italian translation: Soggetto Nomade, Rome: Donzelli, 1995.
- Spanish translation: Sujetos Nómades Corporización y Diferencia Sexual en la Teoria Feminista Contemporánea, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Mexico: Paidos, 2000.
- Translation into Russian of some extracts of Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. In particular: “Introduction: By Way of Nomadism” (pp. 13–22) and chapter 11: ‘Women’s Studies and the politics of Difference’(pp. 136–163). In: Sergei Zherebkin (ed.) Anthology on Western Gender Studies Theory, II Volume of the textbook Introduction to Gender Studies, St. Petersburg: Aleteia and Kharcov Center for Gender Studies, 2001. Translated by Zaven Babloyan.
- Portuguese translation of chapter 8: “A diferenca sexual como um projecto politico nomada” in: Genero, Identitade e Desejo. Antologia Critica do Femminismo Contemporaneo, Lisboa: Edicoes Cotovia, 2002.
- Korean translation, isbn: 89-951903-8-8, 2005.
- Russian translation of chapter 8: “Sexual Difference as a Nomadic Political Project” in: Feminism, Art and Theory. 1970-2000, Moscow: RosPen, 2005.
- Polish translation: Podmioty Nomadyczne. Ucieleśnienie I różnica seksualna w feminizmie współczesnym, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Naukowe I Profesjonalne, 2009.
Video Document
- 2009, Feature-length film released as DVD on Braidotti’s life and work by Andrea Petõ and Hungarian producer Ilona Hernádi. Primatv Production.
External links
- Rosi Braidotti personal page
- page on Rosi Braidotti at the Feminist Theory Website
- Interview with Rosi Braidotti