Overkill, Literally

Overkill, Literally

With Barthes, Foucault, Nesbit, and now Marchessault, we have extensively discussed authorship in terms of life and death. For me, this is slightly dramatic and very dichotomous. It’s overkill. I really appreciated that Marchessault pointed out the need to move beyond such black-and-white thinking. She writes that confronting the exclusionary role of the Author “might be done by exploring alternative notions of subjectivity not bound to a dialectic of masters and slaves or life and death” (89). She suggests a way to break this dichotomy that is actually in direct opposition to Barthes’ call for the death of the author. Based on the ideas of Felski, she explains the possibility of “a sphere that would bring together both the author and the reader…as a discursive political community” (87) through a shared identity, here gender. This is an issue of collective representation. She continues, “The affirmation of female authorial voices can be understood as widening the political scope to take account of differences between women (class, race, nationality and sexuality) with the view towards larger political coalitions” (89). The patterns of individual recognition lead to large-scale group power dynamics, and are therefore crucial to societal democracy. To bring “death” to the author in order to bring “life” to the reader makes no sense when you consider how the two are inextricably bound together, especially among minority groups.

Just to put it out there, although I appreciate Marchessault’s more middle-ground approach, I personally find feminism problematic in that it speaks great ideas, but poses them as exclusively feminine. I think the last quote I used is true also from a man’s perspective. There are also differences of class, race, etc., among men, and their voices should be heard, too. Black men, Hispanic men, and Asian-American men should be given authorial voices, and that would similarly lead to more widely dispersed societal power and representation. Feminism is pioneering, for sure, but I think it needs the disclaimer that it is leading the way for the betterment of society as a whole, not just for women.