Resentment and the “Feminine” in Nietzsche’s Politico-Aesthetics
216 pages | 1 illustration | 6 X 9 | 1999
ISBN 978-0-271-01888-1 | cloth: $59.00 sh
ISBN 978-0-271-01889-8 | paper: $27.00 sh
Nietzsche's remarks about women and femininity have generated a great deal of debate among philosophers, some seeing them as ineradicably misogynist, others interpreting them more favorably as ironic and potentially useful for modern feminism. In this study, Kay Picart uses a genealogical approach to track the way Nietzsche's initial use of "feminine" mythological figures as symbols for modernity's regenerative powers gradually gives way to an increasingly misogynistic politics, resulting in the silencing and emasculation of his earlier configurations of the "feminine."
While other scholars have focused on classifying the degree of offensiveness of Nietzsche's ambivalent and developing misogyny, Picart examines what this misogyny means for his political philosophy as a whole. Picart successfully shows how Nietzsche's increasingly derogatory treatment of the "feminine" in his post-Zarathustran works is closely tied to his growing resentment over his inability to revive a decadent modernity.
Caroline (Kay) Picart is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. She is the author of Eroticism, Death, Music, and Laughter in Mann and Nietzsche (Kluwer/Rodopi, forthcoming) and The Rebirths of Frankenstein (University of Texas Press, forthcoming).