Ludic Feminism and After: Postmodernism, Desire, and Labor in Late Capitalism

356 Pages·1996·19.271 MB·English

by  Teresa L. Ebert

Critical Perspectives on Women and Gender
LUDIC LEMINISM
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Postmodernism, Desire, and Labor
in Late Capitalism
TERESA L. LRERT
MICHIGAN

Ludic Feminism and After
Critical Perspectives on Women and Gender
Critical Perspectives on Women and Gender brings books on timely issues and
controversies to an interdisciplinary audience. The series explores gender-
related topics and illuminates the issues involved in current debates in femi-
nist scholarship and across the disciplines.
Series Editorial Board
Ruth Behar
Miige Gocek
Anne Herrmann
Carol Karlsen
Patricia Simons
Domna Stanton
Abigail Stewart
Christina Brooks Whitman
Titles in the series
Michelle Fine
Disruptive Voices: The Possibilities of Feminist Research
Susan D. Clayton and Faye J. Crosby
Justice, Gender, and Affirmative Action
Janice Doane and Devon Hodges
From Klein to Kristeva: Psychoanalytic Feminism and the
Search for the “Good Enough” Mother
Jill Dolan
Presence and Desire: Essays on Gender, Sexuality, Performance
Judith Newton
Starting Over: Feminism and the Politics of Cultural Critique
Jill G. Morawski
Practicing Feminisms, Reconstructing Psychology: Notes on a Liminal Science
Mary S. Gossy
Freudian Slips: Woman, Writing, the Foreign Tongue
Teresa L. Ebert
Ludic Feminism and After:
Postmodernism, Desire, and Labor in Late Capitalism
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Ludic Feminism
and After
Postmodernism, Desire, and Labor
in Late Capitalism
Teresa L. Ebert
Ann Arbor
THE LUINIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS
For Mas’ud Zavarzadeh
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1996
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
1999 1998 1997 1996 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ebert, Teresa L., 1951-
Ludic feminism and after : postmodernism, desire, and labor
in late capitalism / Teresa L. Ebert.
Dp. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-472-09576-5 (alk. paper). — ISBN 0-472-06576-9 pbk. :
alk. paper)
1. Feminist theory. 2. Postmodernism. I. Title.
HQ1190.E24 1995
305-42’01—dc20 95-4333
iP.
Acknowledgments
Parts of this book have appeared in earlier forms. Grateful acknowledg-
ment is made to the following authors and journals for permission to
reprint previously published materials.
College English for an earlier version of “The ‘Difference’ of Postmodern
Feminism,” College English 53, no. 8 (December 1991), published by the
National Council of Teachers of English.
Cultural Critique for “Ludic Feminism, the Body, Performance, and Labor:
Bringing Materialism Back into Feminist Cultural Studies,” Cultural Critique
23 (winter 1992-93), published by permission by Oxford University Press.
Genders for “The Crisis of (Ludic) Socialist Feminism,” Genders 21 (spring
1995). By permission of New York University Press.
Kostas Myrsiades and Jerry McGuire for “Subalterity and Feminism in the
Moment of the (Post)modern: The Materialist Re-Turn,” reprinted from
Order and Partialities: Theory, Pedagogy, and the ‘Postcolonial,’ edited by
Kostas Myrsiades and Jerry McGuire (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1995). By permission of the State University of New York Press.
© 1995.
Rethinking Marxism for “Surplus Enjoyment in the Post-al Real,” Rethinking
Marxism 7, no. 3 (fall 1994).
Transformation for “(Untimely) Critiques for a Red Feminism,” Transforma-
tion 1 (spring 1995).
Women’s Review of Books for “The Politics of the Outrageous,” Women’s
Review of Books 9, no. 1 (October 1991); and for response, Women’s Review of
Books 9, no. 3 (December 1991).
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/ludicfeminismaft0000eber
Contents
Preface
Part 1
Theorizing Materialism
Chapter 1. Feminism, Critique, and the Matter of Materialism
Chapter 2. Cyborgs, Lust, and Labor:
The Crisis of Ludic Socialist Feminism
Part 2
Beyond Ludic Politics
Chapter 3. Feminism and Resistance Postmodernism 129
Chapter 4. Post-al Politics: Maverick Feminism
and Emancipation 181
Chapter 5. Excess-ive Bodies: Essentialism, Indeterminacy,
and Retrofeminism 233
Chapter 6. Women and_/as the Subaltern 283
Notes 303
Bibliography 309
Index 333
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