Cixous, Hélène (1937–)

Hélène Cixous, a prolific French author born in Algeria, works between poetry and philosophy. She is part of a larger intellectual community in France that, since the 1960s, has sought a critique of the Western (male) subject, claiming that the ‘metaphysical’ notion of the subject has for three centuries contributed to the repression of nature, women and other cultures by construing human existence in terms of the separation of mind from body, and more generally of concept from metaphor. Influenced by Nietzsche and Freud, Cixous privileges the artistic and poetic but all her work has philosophical underpinnings, especially those proposed by Derrida. Like his, her thought champions notions of difference, multiplicity and life over identity, univocity and death. She seeks to displace the unified, narcissistic (male) subject, which in her view is on the side of death. Cixous is also importantly influenced by her critical reception of Hegel and Heidegger.