Contributors bring Irigaray's concept of the threshold to bear on a range of issues in this innovative, transdisciplinary volume.
In Luce Irigaray's work, the threshold (le seuil) designates a new horizon of space and time, and therein a transformative possibility of relation through difference. Thresholds of Irigaray brings together a diverse set of scholarly voices—including renowned philosophers George Yancy and Kristin Sampson—to think with, through, and beyond Irigaray's concept of the threshold. While part 1 focuses on immanent readings of Irigaray's work and part 2 extends her work beyond her own aims, all of the essays in this volume envision the threshold as a resource for engaging pressing philosophical, ethical, and political concerns. Contributors approach topics ranging from sustainable farming practices, architectural design, and science fiction fandom to the racialization of sexuate difference, fetal personhood, and the nature of the universe itself. Through these innovative explorations of the space and time of relation, Thresholds of Irigaray affirms the applicability of Irigaray's thought not only to different disciplines but also to the challenges of living in today's world and creating new worlds.
"The first volume on Irigaray centered on the critical theme of 'thresholds,' Thresholds of Irigaray approaches her work from a variety of fields, including literature, music, architecture, critical race theory, law, environmental justice, and philosophy of science. Barker and Jolissaint have brought together an impressive group of scholars, each of whose essays is strong, compelling, and sure to command attention. The essay by George Yancy, for example, marks the philosopher's first public engagement with Irigaray and addresses directly the vexed question of the relation of her thought of sexual difference to racial inequality. Sure to become a classic, it is just one example of the many contributions made by this excellent volume as it takes up Irigaray's critiques of both philosophy and psychoanalysis in original and illuminating ways." — Mary C. Rawlinson, coeditor of What Is Sexual Difference? Thinking with Irigaray