Here are 100 books that In the Beginning, She Was fans have personally recommended if you like
In the Beginning, She Was.
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I’ve always searched for personalities – mythological, literary, or real – affirming the highest ethical claims for justice. Sophocles’s Antigone is, without doubt, the preeminent example of this ethical demand, based on ancient unwritten laws and related demands for human dignity. As a woman, Antigone also presents the forgotten and suppressed orders of femininity, which were present in all archaic religions and mythologies, but later repressed and fully replaced with exclusively male Gods. I’m therefore interested in books that guide us in this search for the power of ethics and femininity and hope this list will give you an idea of the rich ethical potentials that we possess.
This excellent collection of essays brings some of the key readings of Sophocles’ Antigone in an ethical and feminist key. It includes, among others, interpretations by Tina Chanter, Luce Irigaray, and Bracha L. Ettinger. In the fascinating lineup of chapters, the book guides us through political, psychoanalytical, and sexual genealogies and classical interpretations of this Greek myth, thus providing the authoritative scholarship on a female figure of Antigone.
Antigone has become a major figure in current cultural discourse thanks to the late twentieth-century interpretations by such controversial theorists as Lacan, Derrida, Irigaray, Zizek, and Judith Butler. This collection of articles by distinguished scholars from a variety of intellectual disciplines (including philosophy, psychoanalysis, feminism, theatre, and the classics) provides a postmodern perspective on the ethical and political issues raised by this ancient text and recent theatrical productions. The contributors provide an array of perspectives on a female figure who questions the role of the patriarchal state.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I’ve always searched for personalities – mythological, literary, or real – affirming the highest ethical claims for justice. Sophocles’s Antigone is, without doubt, the preeminent example of this ethical demand, based on ancient unwritten laws and related demands for human dignity. As a woman, Antigone also presents the forgotten and suppressed orders of femininity, which were present in all archaic religions and mythologies, but later repressed and fully replaced with exclusively male Gods. I’m therefore interested in books that guide us in this search for the power of ethics and femininity and hope this list will give you an idea of the rich ethical potentials that we possess.
This book is a fascinating collection of essays on Antigone, written by key contemporary thinkers, such as Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Bracha L. Ettinger, and Adriana Cavarero. Hegel daringly compared Antigone to Socrates and Jesus and this book shows the full range of ethical questions and consequences, related to Antigone and her highest ethical demand. Through this book, the fictitious woman from Sophocles’ drama written 2,500 years ago, incarnates in front of us as a living figure of contemporary feminine ethics.
I’ve always searched for personalities – mythological, literary, or real – affirming the highest ethical claims for justice. Sophocles’s Antigone is, without doubt, the preeminent example of this ethical demand, based on ancient unwritten laws and related demands for human dignity. As a woman, Antigone also presents the forgotten and suppressed orders of femininity, which were present in all archaic religions and mythologies, but later repressed and fully replaced with exclusively male Gods. I’m therefore interested in books that guide us in this search for the power of ethics and femininity and hope this list will give you an idea of the rich ethical potentials that we possess.
In her work, Bracha L. Ettinger proposes to depart in our thinking from a difference that is feminine and argues for the “matrixial” sphere as a corporeal locus that incarnates in our various human becomings toward the other – such as through compassion or empathy. This book has a Foreword written by Judith Butler and navigates through some of the key phenomena in ethics of femininity, including the original Ettingerian concept of prematernal and prenatal compassion.
Artist, psychoanalyst, and feminist theorist Bracha Ettinger presents an original theoretical exploration of shared affect and emergent expression, across the thresholds of identity and memory. Ettinger works through Lacan's late works, the anti-Oedipal perspectives of Deleuze and Guattari, as well as object-relations theory to critique the phallocentrism of mainstream Lacanian theory and to rethink the masculine-feminine opposition. She replaces the phallic structure with a dimension of emergence, where objects, images, and meanings are glimpsed in their incipiency, before they are differentiated. This is the matrixial realm, a shareable, psychic dimension that underlies the individual unconscious and experience.
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
I’ve always searched for personalities – mythological, literary, or real – affirming the highest ethical claims for justice. Sophocles’s Antigone is, without doubt, the preeminent example of this ethical demand, based on ancient unwritten laws and related demands for human dignity. As a woman, Antigone also presents the forgotten and suppressed orders of femininity, which were present in all archaic religions and mythologies, but later repressed and fully replaced with exclusively male Gods. I’m therefore interested in books that guide us in this search for the power of ethics and femininity and hope this list will give you an idea of the rich ethical potentials that we possess.
Jean Anouilh wrote his Antigone during WW2 and it was first performed in 1944 in occupied Paris. This book is one of the most powerful interpretations of the Greek myth of Antigone and her unsurpassable ethical deed. The statement of Anouilh’s Antigone – to say “No!” to whatever she would not be willing to affirm, is the sign of an ultimate and universal ethical demand for justice.
Full Length, Tragedy / 8m, 4f Produced in modern dress in New York with Katherine Cornell and Sir Cedric Hardwicke, the Galantiere version of the Greek legend comes from a Paris that suffered under the heel of tyranny. The play's parallels to modern times are exciting and provocative. "Its dimensions are noble, its intentions uncompromising."-Southwestern University, Texas
I am a classically and formally trained philosopher. I have a Doctorate in Philosophy from Duquesne University (2011). I've been interested in philosophy for as long as I can remember; however, I began formally studying philosophy when I first discovered the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. I began teaching philosophy at the university level in 2004. I've taught over 100 university-level courses, including graduate-level courses in both philosophy and psychology. I'm presently finishing my tenth philosophy book, along with over 50 professional peer-reviewed articles in philosophy. These days my attention is devoted to sharing philosophy on the internet through The Philosophemes YouTube Channel, @Philosophemes on Instagram, and the Basic Philosophical Questions Podcast.
In my opinion, Gilles Deleuze was the greatest French philosopher of the 20th century, and that century was loaded with amazing French philosophers. Deleuze wrote a large number of excellent books. However, his doctoral dissertation, Difference and Repetition, is quite special. On the one hand, it is – from a philosophical point of view – very enjoyable to read. Though, some may find its style too layered and allusive. On the other hand, Difference and Repetition is also consistently listed as one of the three greatest works in philosophy written in the 20th century. Ultimately, in regard to Kant’s science of metaphysics, Deleuze’s book is a work in transcendental philosophy. More specifically, Deleuze’s book addresses all three divisions by treating cosmological metaphysics as the point of origin for theological and psychological metaphysics.
One last thing to mention here is that Difference and Repetition is the most difficult…
This brilliant exposition of the critique of identity is a classic in contemporary philosophy and one of Deleuze's most important works. Of fundamental importance to literary critics and philosophers,Difference and Repetition develops two central concepts-pure difference and complex repetition-and shows how the two concepts are related. While difference implies divergence and decentering, repetition is associated with displacement and disguising. Central in initiating the shift in French thought away from Hegel and Marx toward Nietzsche and Freud, Difference and Repetition moves deftly to establish a fundamental critique of Western metaphysics.
My fascination with magic and the occult emerged from growing up in Scotland, which has a long, rich history of witchcraft, fairies, and the 19th century Celtic Revival, which saw a relation between art and magic. For me, the occult is primarily about liberating the imagination and this is what surrealism does. I became enchanted by surrealist art as a teenager which then led me to study History of Art at university. After graduating in 1989, I wrote my book at a time when there was so little available on the relationship between surrealism and occultism, determined to share my passion with other readers.
This book traces the astonishing history and thinking behind the secret society called Acéphale created by Georges Bataille, known as the ‘dissident surrealist.' Secret societies were a feature of occultism throughout history (the word occult itself means 'hidden’). Acéphale was represented as a headless figure holding a burning heart, a dagger, and with a skull in the groin.
The members of the society would meet in silence to perform rituals beneath a lightning-struck oak tree in a forest outside Paris, evoking the ancient Druid rites described in Frazer’s The Golden Bough, blended with Nietzsche’s philosophy of the Death of God. The book is an outstanding work of scholarship and I would highly recommend this as part of any serious library on surrealism and occultism.
Georges Bataille's secret society, long the stuff of legend, is now revealed in its texts, meditations, rules and prohibitions
This book recounts what must be one of the most unusual intellectual journeys of modern times, in which the influential philosopher, cultural theorist and occasional pornographer Georges Bataille (1897–1962), having spent the early 1930s in far-left groups opposing the rise of fascism, abandoned that approach in order to transfer the struggle onto "the mythological plane."
In 1937, Bataille founded two groups in order to explore the combinations of power and the "sacred" at work in society. The first group, the College…
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
Since I was young, I’ve suffered from Major Depressive Disorder, coupled with chronic pain that surfaced when I was in middle school. Being in constant pain—mental and physical—obviously drains the spirit. I found no hope whatsoever in phrases such as, “It gets better.” When you have chronic pain, that statement means nothing, because you know it won’t. These books, however, offered me something that I hadn’t encountered before: someone acknowledging that, although it may never get better, there is still something for me here, whatever form it takes. These books do not shame depressives, they console (and even commiserate) with them, and I hope you find them as fulfilling as I have.
The Trouble with Being Born is, in my opinion, Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran’s swan song.
Cioran presents a bleak worldview in which history is simply a long string of failures. Paradoxically, however, it’s almost life-affirming. Personally, I can hardly stand the creep of New Age philosophies and attitudes into mental health discussion, part of which inspired my book.
Constant lectures on how I ought to view life, how I ought to cope, and how I ought to “heal,” a word that’s been beaten to death, pretty much had the opposite effect on me. Instead of feeling understood, I felt alone. Contrarily, Cioran offers no such platitudes.
Through his bleak reflections, he offers reassurances that no matter how difficult life can become, we ought to stay our course—or, at least, that it’s too late to do anything about it.
“A love of Cioran creates an urge to press his writing into someone’s hand, and is followed by an equal urge to pull it away as poison.”—The New Yorker
In this volume, which reaffirms the uncompromising brilliance of his mind, Cioran strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birth and death, suggesting that disaster lies not in the prospect of death but in the fact of birth, "that laughable accident." In the lucid, aphoristic style that characterizes his work, Cioran writes of time and death, God and religion, suicide and suffering, and the temptation to silence. Through…
I am a feminist writer and sexologist. My recent book narrates my search for sexual empowerment and presents my vision for a world where no woman is objectified. I teach courses on topics including orgasms, neurodiversity, and childbirth. I also coach people on their sex and love lives, empowering them to take control over their relationships. I am now working on a new book that imparts my long and winding triumph over chronic illness and reveals that having a female body is not a curse but a blessing.
Women's genitals are too often painted as passive, empty holes. When we think of them, we think of the vagina rather than the vulva or clitoris. In this book, Irigaray offers a simple reframe: Our bodies are not zero. They are two.
Analyzing the symbolism of the female body, Irigaray challenges patriarchal logic. This book helped me become sexual in a way that honored my own body rather than submitting to the erasure so endemic to our culture.
"The publication of these two translations is an event to be celebrated by feminists of all persuasions."
Women's Review of Books
In This Sex Which Is Not One, Luce Irigaray elaborates on some of the major themes of Speculum of the Other Woman, her landmark work on the status of woman in Western philosophical discourse and in psychoanalytic theory, In eleven acute and widely ranging essays, Irigaray reconsiders the question of female sexuality in a variety of contexts that are relevant to current discussion of feminist theory and practice.
Among the topics she treats are the implications of…
My work over the past four decades has been to promote women’s rights, end violence against women, promote social justice, and positively transform the lives of men. I’ve worked extensively with the United Nations; presidents, prime ministers, and governments; companies and unions; NGOs and educators in fifty countries. I continue to be inspired by the many incredible people I get to meet. In addition to my talks to communities, companies, and universities, my activism, and my books on this subject, I also write fiction, most recently my mystery The Last Exit.
I always get pissed off when I hear some guy ranting that feminists are anti-male. In fact, I think feminists are the most pro-male humans on the planet: in spite of 8,000 years to prove the contrary, they believe that men can be peaceful and loving, and can be equal and equitable partners with women. Liz Plank is one such woman. Her book shows exactly that.
A nonfiction investigation into masculinity, For The Love of Men provides actionable steps for how to be a man in the modern world, while also exploring how being a man in the world has evolved.
In 2019, traditional masculinity is both rewarded and sanctioned. Men grow up being told that boys don’t cry and dolls are for girls (a newer phenomenon than you might realize―gendered toys came back in vogue as recently as the 80s). They learn they must hide their feelings and anxieties, that their masculinity must constantly be proven. They must be the breadwinners, they must be the…
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
by
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
I am a male feminist, internationally renowned sociologist, and recognized expert on gender identity, men and masculinities, and international education. During my thirty-five-year career, I have published twenty books and numerous book chapters and articles. I am a co-creator of the concept of toxic masculinity. I am the creator of the concept of total inclusivity and co-creator of the concept of totally inclusive self-love. My passion and desire for gender justice and an end to male oppression and violence, especially against women and girls, has been the single biggest drive for all my research and writings.
A short but beautiful book, full of wisdom, personal reflections, and compelling truths about men and masculinities.
This was one of the first books on men and masculinities to be published in the UK, and I read it in the early 90s. I found it profoundly helpful in guiding me to become a profeminist man. I particularly appreciate Tolson’s gentle but persuasive arguments wherein he deconstructs what it means to be a working-class British man, showing how ‘patriarchal masculinity’ gets created through, for example, family, relationships, institutions, work, and peer-group pressure.
The book is part autobiographical and throughout Tolson is openly reflective on his own masculinity and the contradictions it creates in him. I recently reread this book and was so impressed at how Tolson’s insights into the state of men over 50 years ago remain relevant to this day.
"In by far the best book I have seen on this subject since Marcuse, Andrew Tolson examines the way in which schools, social and work hierarchies, and the requirements of the economic order lock men in modes of thought and behavior which don't work any longer in their personal lives. His working-class boyhood gives the analysis a particularly valuable breadth, so that we see how the new defensive insecurity is not confines to those men able to articulate it...." -- The Times Educational Supplement
