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MÈRE MÉTAPHORE: The maternal materiality of water in astrida neimanis’s bodies of water
Editors
Title / Series / Name
Angelaki
Publication Volume
28
Publication Issue
1
Pages
Authors
Editors
Keywords
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/14001
Abstract
Bridging feminist new materialism and feminist phenomenology, Astrida Neimanis’s volume, Bodies of Water, discusses water in terms of nurturing maternality based on a figural reservoir of what she terms “amniotics” and “planetary breastmilk” in order to posit this maternality as the material condition of the embodiment of life. In this article I show that this imagery is a construction consistently haunted by figures of anxiety and loss. I do this by first revisiting earlier interventions in deconstruction concerning materiality and feminist theory as follows. First, pointing out a resonance between this figuration of wateriness and Kant’s notion of the dynamic sublime, I turn to Paul de Man’s reading of materiality in the Kantian sublime in order to suggest that Neimanis’s figuration of maternal water is an effect of an aesthetic ideology. Subsequently, I will revisit Diana Fuss’s reading of Irigaray – Neimanis’s main feminist resource – to show that the ontological status of water as maternal is constructed via an Irigarayan distinction between metaphor and metonymy. Finally, in order to show ways in which the maternal materiality of water is haunted by figures of anxiety and loss, I will consult Elissa Marder’s more recent work on the maternal function.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2023
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1080/0969725X.2023.2167793