RECLAMATION OF THE FEMININE GENIUS BEYOND MISOGYNY
A Heuristic Reading of Kierkegaard
Keywords:
Feminism, Kierkegaard, Misogyny, Postmodern, Prospective Perspective, Reclamation, ReligionAbstract
Kierkegaard’s contribution to feminist thinking is a much debated issue as his writings depict women both beautifully and spitefully at the same time. On the one hand, a few scholars argue that his views are blatantly misogynic, and on the other, some argue that his views are redeeming. In the view of the latter, Kierkegaardian thoughts surpass the abstract patriarchal ethics to an ethics of relation or ethics of care. I argue that though one may detect many lines of misogyny in his writings, they can be seen compensated through the insightful lines he writes about women. His insights on feminine qualities and her role in human and religious life can only be an outcome of one who loves and admires them. In this paper I examine his transitions from misogyny to reclamation through a heuristic rereading of Kierkegaardian thinking, and contribute to women’s voice for their personal identity and appropriation of feminine genius in society and religion.
References
Dera Sipe, "Kierkegaard and Feminism: A Paradoxical Friendship," Concept 27 (2004), 1.
Poul Lübcke, "Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication," History of European Ideas 12, 1 (1990), 31-40.
Jon Stewart, "Kierkegaard and the Rich Field of Kierkegaard Studies," in A Companion to Kierkegaard, ed., Jon Stewart, West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing, 2015, 1.
Celine Leon and Sylvia Walsh, eds., Feminist Interpretation of Søren Kierkegaard, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, 1997, 2.
Sylvia Walsh, "Issues That Divide: Interpreting Kierkegaard on Woman and Gender," in Kierkegaard Revisited, ed., Jon Stewart Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co, 1997, 192.
Donald D. Palmer, Kierkegaard for Beginners, New York: Writers and Readers Publishing, 1996, 9-11.
Vincent A. McCarthy, “’Melancholy’ and ‘Religious Melancholy’ in Kierkegaard,” Kierkegaardiana 10 (1977), 151-165.
Andrew J. Burgess, “A Word-Experiment on the Category of the Comic,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Corsair Affair, ed., Robert L. Perkins, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1990, 119.
Søren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard's Writings 1. Early Polemical Writings, trans., Julia Watkin, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990, 3.
Plato, Theaetetus, trans., Harold North Fowler, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 123, London, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1961, § 155d.
Sallie McFague, "Imaging a Theology of Nature: The World as God’s Body," in Liberation Theology: An Introductory Reader, eds., Marilyn J. Legge, Marie Giblin, Curt Cadorette, and Mary H. Snyder, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992,273.
Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon, Human Problem Solving, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1972.
Kjøbenhavnsflyvende Post, Interimsblad, 34, on December 17, 1834. See Early Polemical Writings1, 3-5.
Imre Lakatos, "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes," in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. and Musgrave Imre Lakatos, Alan, London: Cambridge University Press, 1970, 132.
Jacques Haers, "Defensor Vinculi Et Conversationis: Connectedness and Conversation as a Challenge to Theology," in Theology and Conversation: Towards a Relational Theology, ed., Jacques Haers and Peter De Mey, Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003, 2.
Alice von Hildebrand, "Beautiful Words about Women," ˂https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view. cfm?recnum=6668˃ (5.6.2016).
Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, 2 vols., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.
Wanda Warren Berry, "The Heterosexual Imagination and Aesthetic Existence in Kierkegaard’s Either/or, Part 1," in Feminist Interpretation of Søren Kierkegaard, 47.
Valentine Ehichioya Obinyan, “Nature of Human Existence in Kierkegaard’s Ethical Philosophy: A Step towards Self-Valuation and Transformation in Our Contemporary World,” International Journal of Philosophy 2 (2014), 1-14.
Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, 7 vols., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975,vol. IV, 5000.
Thomas G. Casey, “Kierkegaard the Celibate,” The Way 45, 4 (2006), 89-106.
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling; Repetition, ed., Edna Hong and Howard Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983, 64-65.
Three Discourses at the Communion of Fridays, trans. Sylvia Walsh, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.
Søren Kierkegaard, Without Authority, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, 141-149.
William McDonald, “Søren Kierkegaard,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ˂http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/˃ (4.5.2016). See also, Gavin Rae, "Kierkegaard, the Self, Authenticity and the Teleological Suspension of the Ethical," Critical Horizons 11, 1 (2010), 75-97.
Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Dread, trans. Walter Lowrie, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1944, 76. See also, Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, trans. Walter Lowrie, Garden City: Doubleday, 1954, 39-79, 162.
Cynthia Willet, Ellie Anderson and Diana Meyers, “Feminist Perspectives on the Self,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ˂http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-self/#Aca˃ (20.4.2015).
SørenKierkegaard, Kierkegaard’s Writing, XVI: Works of Love, trans., Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998, 139.
YaroslavSenyshyn, The Artist in Crisis: Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of the Aesthetic Stage of Existence and Live Musical Performance, Vancouver: Platon Promotions Publishers, 2011, 169.
Julia Watkin, "The Logic of Søren Kierkegaard’s Misogyny 18541855," in The Feminist Interpretations, 78.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans., Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, New York: Vintage Books, 1949, 330.
