Philosophizing in Plato’s Cave: Hélène Cixous’s Affective Writing

Abstract

Hélène Cixous's work undermines the Cartesian mind-body dichotomy in the Western philosophical canon by (re)writing and (re)constructing history through lived experience and the quotidian. Her writings defy traditional genre boundaries, and I will thus look at both her fiction and non-fiction to suggest that her resistance to genre is a way of creating affective feminist narratives. In combining theory, poetry, philosophy, and personal experience, Cixous creates alternatives to mainstream academic and philosophical writing styles by allowing her writing to be intimately personal, artistic, and creative. I read Cixous's work in the light of contemporary affect theories and new materialism that are influenced by Deleuzian philosophy because the latter are concerned with many of the same issues as Cixousian writing-embodiment, affect, materiality, the non-human, and the move away from dualistic thinking. Cixous's affective writing is an example of philosophy that explores Plato's cave instead of transcending from it into some abstract realm.