Les mots

I was recently giving a paper on Franco-Anglo Feminisms in Canada at panel on Canadian Feminisms at the Hypatia/CSW conference, Exploring Collaborative Contestations and Diversifying Philosophy, at Villanova. A subject that seems little discussed outside Québec and Franco-Canada is the place and the impact of francophone writings. As it sometimes happens, the planets lined up nicely, and the week of my presentation an article appeared in the New Yorker on the impact, or lack of, French Canadian literature. Is this also the case for feminist theories? As a Franco-Ontarian born, but Québec-raised feminist philosopher, who attends feminist conferences mostly in English, I have wondered about the lack of attention to Québec-Franco writings. If English is becoming universal, it has the potential to serve as a common language. This comes at cost, and I worry, especially now that I teach in both languages, that we are losing the richness of minority languages; and French is a minority language in North America. The situation of francophones in North America is complex: we stand as past (and present) colonizers but also as colonized and under threat of extinction. It makes for difficult politics and the role of languages in preserving identity is lived very intensely by Canadian and Québécois French speakers. I believe in cross-linguistic enrichment and my goal here is to plead for increased translation. Of course there is a danger: to translate could have as a consequence less engagement with the original language. For a careful treatment of the perils of translation see Elissa Marder’s article ‘Force and Translation; Or, The Polymorphous Body of Language,’ PhiloSOPHIA, Vol. 3(1), 2013. However, I hope translation will create a curiosity and encourage students to seek the original.

When I teach, I always endeavor to expose students to writings of authors from different traditions. This has meant, for example, that my students in my Éthiques féministes class got to read, in French, articles by Eva Kittay, Annette Baier, Marilyn Friedman as well as Susan Moller Okin. For this I am most grateful to the work of Sandra Laugier, Patricia Paperman, and Pascale Molinière, who got behind the translation of Joan Tronto’s work, which in turn created interest for Anglo-American feminist writings. However, I am at a loss when I teach Feminist Ethics to introduce my students to the writings of Diane Lamoureux, for example. It is not only that writers from different cultures or languages bring a different perspective; it is also that they have a different philosophical background that they draw upon. For example, the use of vulnerability by French feminists in an ethics of care framework is quite different than that of their Anglo-American counterparts. At least as an initial step, translation is crucial. In Canada, the Canada Council does give grants for this and I am extremely pleased that Fernwood Press decided to make available Mélissa Blais’s book on the Montréal Massacre and its aftermath. The book, “Je haïs les féministes!” (Éditions du Remue-Ménage, 2009), analyzes the manner in which the massacre, which occurred at the École Polytechnique de Montréal in 1989 has been discussed, what has been emphasized and what is missing. It is an important book as it rises above the specificity of that event to highlight the manner in which feminist and antifeminist discourses are presented and represented in the Press. I am glad that I can use this book in my feminist class (“Mélissa Blais “I hate Feminists!”: December 6th 1989 and its aftermath, Fernwood Publishing, 2014).

The people who are facing certain kind of heart disease and diabetes, tadalafil generic cheapest the conditions that are the potential risk factors associated with erectile dysfunction. The reason behind is that both buy cialis pill the original source and Kamagra, works to improve the blood flow to the penis once a man is being excited. You can just envision the dreadful cost this condition can levitra 40 mg also lead to some psychological roots. cialis price canada Notably, you can collect some references from here too. Minority languages need support to thrive; they have much to offer not only to those who speak it, obviously, but to others as well. As Marder argues in her article, academia plays an important role. This is not only at the level of departments; as teachers I believe we have a duty to expose out students to writers from diverse cultures and languages. Québec society is unique in many ways and the conversations that are taking place there often precede those that will take place in the rest of Canada. The case of assisted suicide or assisted death is an example. It is not a waste of time or effort to look over the borders of one’s language to examine what is happening elsewhere.

 

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