Dialectical Materialism and the 'Feminine Sublime'

Abstract

Drawing primarily on Slavoj Žižek’s Lacanian reading of Kant and Hegel, but also taking up arguments made by Joan Copjec and Fredric Jameson, this article asserts a conception of the ‘feminine sublime’ in accordance with the political-philosophical approach of dialectical materialism. The article begins by distinguishing between historical and dialectical materialism in order to assert what is at stake in the Marxian critique of ideology, followed by a discussion of the Lacanian conception of the feminine subjective position. The conception of the ‘feminine sublime’ articulated here draws connections between the feminine and proletarian subjective positions, and proposes a way of articulating an ethics of revolutionary subjectivity.