Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly

Book excerpt: This open-ended anthology is a journey into the very canon that Mary Daly has argued to be patriarchal and demeaning to women. This volume deauthorizes the official canon of Western philosophy and disrupts a related story told by some feminists who claim that Daly&’s work is unworthy of re-reading because it contains fatal errors. The editors and contributors attempt to prove that Mary Daly is located in the Western intellectual tradition. Daly may be highly critical of conventional Western epistemological and theological traditions, but she nevertheless appropriates themes &“out-of-context&” for the building of her own systematic philosophy. The following are just a few of the many themes explored in this volume: &• the question of subjectivity understood as an ongoing process of be-coming &• the ambiguity of the need for feminists of colonial nations to speak out about violence against women in other parts of the world while that speaking carries with it the stamp of a colonial location &• the territoriality of lesbian and women&’s space &• the theological dimensions of twentieth-century Western philosophy. Contributors are Wanda Warren Berry, Purushottama Bilimoria, Debra Campbell, Molly Dragiewicz, Frances Gray, Amber L. Katherine, AnaLouise Keating, Anne-Marie Korte, Mar&ía Lugones, Geraldine Moane, Sheilagh A. Mogford, Laurel C. Schneider, Renuka Sharma, and Marja Suhonen.