Hélène Cixous born on 5 June 1937 is a professor, Algerian/French feminist writer, poet, playwright, philosopher, literary critic and rhetorician. She is known for her participation in the
feminist movement of France. Always interested in teaching, she got her
teaching degree in English literature, and has worked for several prestigious
universities in France. This accomplished writer’s works show heavy influences
of the ideas and works of Irish-English author James Joyce, world-renowned
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and her mentor Jacques Derrida. Initially, more
general in style, this author’s writings became increasingly feminist towards
the end of the 1960s. She got actively involved with the students’ revolution
in France, and founded a university called ‘Paris VIII’. At the same
university, this visionary writer introduced the first ever women’s studies PhD
programme in the history of Europe. This writer has authored more than six collections
of essays, twenty-three books of poetry, and several acclaimed articles and
plays. Cixous is best known for her article
''The Laugh of the Medusa'', which established her as one of the mothers of
poststructuralist feminist theory The French
writer has won innumerable accolades including the French order of merit,
‘Légion d’Honneur’, and the Brazilian award of the ‘Southern Cross’. Famous
institutions across the world, such as ‘Georgetown University’ and ‘University
of Wisconsin’, amongst several others, have conferred honorary doctorates upon
this remarkable author.
Childhood &
Early Life:
• Hélène Cixous was born on June 5,
1937, to French physician Georges Cixous and his Austro-German wife Eve, in
Oran, a city in the French colony of Algeria.
• When Hélène was just eleven years
old, Georges died of tuberculosis, which was ironically his topic of research.
To fend for the family, which consisted of the little girl and her brother
Pierre, Eve started working as a midwife in Algeria.
• In 1955, she joined the ‘Lycée
Lakanal’, a school in Paris, to prepare for her university entrance
examinations. The next year, the young woman started preparing for her
‘agrégation’, which is a teacher’s eligibility examination in France.
Career:
Cixous
began teaching at a school in the French town of Arcachon, in 1959. The
following year, she met Jean-Jacques Mayoux who helped the writer with her
thesis on English writer James Joyce.
Two
years later, in 1962, this talented author started working at the ‘University
of Bordeaux’ as an assistant teacher. The same year, she made acquaintance with
Jacques Derrida, a philosopher who too helped her learn more about writer
Joyce.
Cixous
travelled to the US in 1963, where she studied Joyce’s manuscripts, working
along with psychoanalytical theoretician, Jacques Lacan. After two years of
research on Joyce, she returned to France and was appointed as an assistant
teacher at the ‘University of Sorbonne’.
In
1967, ‘Le Prénom du Dieu’ (‘God’s First Name’), Hélène’s first fictional work,
was published. After the book’s success, this exceptional writer was appointed
as a professor, without a PhD, at the ‘University of Nanterre’.
Edgar
Faure, the Minister of Education in France, gave her the responsibility of
starting ‘Paris VIII’, in 1968. This experimental university teaches unusual
subjects like urban planning, psychoanalysis, geopolitics, and gender studies.
The
same year, she started a journal titled ‘Poétique’, with the help of French
scholars Tzvetan Todorov and Gérard Genette. She also released her thesis
titled ‘L'Exil de James Joyce ou l'Art du remplacement’ (‘The Exile of James
Joyce, or the Art of Displacement’) in 1968.
In
1969, she published her second book of fiction, ‘Dedans’ (‘Inside’), based on
the death of her father.
The
feminist author published a collection of essays called ‘Prénoms de personne’,
in 1974. The book features works on famous psychoanalysts and writers like
Sigmund Freud, Edgar Allan Poe and James Joyce.
In
1975, this brilliant writer authored the book ‘Portrait de Dora’ which received
critical acclaim. Meant for the theatre, it was enacted successfully at the
‘Théâtre d’Orsay’, for almost a year.
During
the same time, her writings became more and more feminist in their style, and
‘Le Rire de la Méduse’ (‘The Laugh of the Medusa’) was published.
During
1976-1979, she published works like ‘La Jeune Née’, ‘La Venue à l'écriture’,
‘Révolutions pour plus d'un Faust’, ‘Ananké’, and ‘Le Nom d'Oedipe. Chant du
corps interdi’.
During
the 1980s, the prolific writer wrote popular books like ‘With ou l'Art de
l'innocence’, ‘Le Livre de Promethea’, ‘La Prise de l'école de Madhubaï’, and
‘L'Heure de Clarice Lispector’.
In
the next decade, from 1990-1999, this amazing feminist published works like
‘Jours de l'an’, ‘Beethoven à jamais’, ‘ou l'éxistence de Dieu’, ‘Osnabrück’,
‘L'Histoire (qu'on ne connaîtra jamais’, ‘On ne part pas, on ne revient pas’,
and ‘Photos de racines’.
In
the 2000s, Hélène wrote books like ‘Tours promises', 'Double Oubli de
l'Orang-Outang', 'Cigüe', 'Les Naufragés du Fol Espoi', and 'Le Voisin de zéro
: Sam Beckett'. She also wrote the famous 'Portrait de Jacques Derrida en Jeune
Saint Juif', which focuses on the works of her mentor, Jacques Derrida.
Influences
on Cixous' writing
Some
of the most notable influences on her writings have been Jacques Derrida, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and Arthur Rimbaud
Sigmund Freud :Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud established the initial theories which
would serve as a basis for some of Cixous' arguments in developmental
psychology. Freud's analysis of gender roles and sexual identity concluded with
separate paths for boys and girls through the Oedipus complex, theories of
which Cixous was particularly critical.
Jacques Derrida: Contemporaries, lifelong friends, and intellectuals, Jacques Derrida and Cixous both grew up as French Jews in Algeria and
share a "belonging constituted of exclusion and nonbelonging"—not
Algerian, rejected by France, their Jewishness concealed or acculturated. In
Derrida's family "one never said 'circumcision' but 'baptism,' not 'Bar
Mitzvah' but 'communion.'" Judaism cloaked in Catholicism is one example
of the undecidability of identity that influenced the thinker whom Cixous calls
a "Jewish Saint." Her
book Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint addresses
these matters.
Through deconstruction, Derrida employed the term logocentrism (which
was not his coinage). This is the concept that explains how language relies on
a hierarchical system
that values the spoken word over the written word in Western culture. The idea of binary opposition is essential to Cixous' position on language.
Cixous
and Luce Irigaray combined Derrida's logocentric idea and Lacan's symbol
for desire, creating the term phallogocentrism. This term focuses on Derrida's social structure of
speech and binary opposition as the center of reference for language, with the
phallic being privileged and how women are only defined by what they lack; not
A vs. B, but, rather A vs. ¬A (not-A).
In a dialogue between Derrida and Cixous, Derrida said about
Cixous: "Helene's texts are translated across the world, but they remain
untranslatable. We are two French writers who cultivate a strange relationship,
or a strangely familiar relationship with the French language -- at once more
translated and more untranslatable than many a French author. We are more
rooted in the French language than those with ancestral roots in this culture
and this land."
Major Works
Of
all her feminism-centric works of fiction, theatre and essays, Hélène Cixous is
most known for her book ‘Le Rire de la Méduse’, written in 1975. The book was
translated from French to English the next year, by writers Keith Cohen and
Paula Cohen for ‘Signs’, an American journal that focuses on feminism. The book
employs the rhetoric of allusions to talk about feminism and the acceptance of
bisexuality.
Awards and
Achievements
Cixous
was felicitated with the French literary award ‘Prix Médicis’, for her
fictional work, ‘Dedans’, in 1969.
In
1989 Hélène was honoured with the ‘Southern Cross of Brazil’ for her extensive
studies on the Russian-Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, and her works.
She
was awarded the ‘Légion d’Honneur’, one of the highest French orders, in 1994,
by the 21st President of France, François Mitterrand.
She
has also been presented honorary doctorates by several esteemed institutions
like ‘Queen’s University’, ‘Georgetown University’ in Washington D.C.,
‘University of Wisconsin’ and ‘Northwestern University’, Chicago.
Personal
Life & Legacy
In
1955, the Hélène got married to Guy Berger, who was a teacher of philosophy.
The
couple had a daughter, Anne-Emmanuelle, in 1957, and a son, Stéphane, three
years later. Stéphane died as an infant and the next year, another son,
Pierre-François, was born.
The
writer and her husband got divorced in 1964, after nine years of marriage.
In
2000, this writer gave away all her works to the 'Bibliothèque nationale de
France', and this French library dedicated a section to her collection of
manuscripts. The following year, the same collection of books was displayed at
the 'Brouillons d'écrivains', a literary exhibition held at the library.
Trivia
This
prolific writer, along with French modern thinkers, Julia Kristeva and Luce
Irigaray, is known as one of the mothers of the famous ‘poststructuralist
feminist theory.
