For seminar this week, we were discussing various articles written by Maria Lugones in preparation for her visit to our campus. We read Boomerang Perception and the Colonizing Gaze: Ginger Reflections on Horizontal Hostility, Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: On the Logic of Oppression, Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception, as well as Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the demand for “The Woman’s Voice”, which she co-authored with Elizabeth Spelman. I had never read Maria Lugones’s work before, and the first thing that struck me was the incredibly original style of her writing. Reading her work felt like feminist philosophy had been enveloped by a slam poem. Her writing has this wonderfully rhythmic, vibrant quality to it that pulled me along through her beautifully constructed theories and assertions.
The piece in which this style is perhaps the most prominent is Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception, which I feel I cannot discuss without including Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes :On the Logic of Pluralist Feminisms. In both Lugones takes as her subject the relationship between white women and women of color living in the U.S. In Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception, Lugones describes the difficulty of inhabiting multiple worlds at once, something she suggests many women of color do in the U.S. Here (and I am condensing this idea into the tiniest of nutshells) Lugones uses the word “world” to describe a particular existence/experience. “One can be at the same time in a ‘world’ that constructs one as stereotypically latin, for example,” Lugones writes, “and in a world that constructs one as latin. Being stereotypically latin and being simply latin are different simultaneous constructions of persons that are a part of different ‘worlds.’” Thus, “world”-travelling becomes a way of navigating one’s own plurality.
It seems to me however, that “world”-travelling can also be the way to recognize plurality, as Lugones asks we attempt to do in her piece Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes :On the Logic of Pluralist Feminisms. The way I understand this concept is this: that true recognition of plurality involves conceptualizing yourself and others in a world that is not your own. I believe I drew this connection only because I read both of these essays back to back, and later simultaneously. It makes sense to me that the only way to truly comprehend plurality and difference in women is through attempting to see yourself, your world, and other women as they must be in their worlds. In this essay, Lugones writes, “You are in part what we make you up to be, and we are in part what you make us up to be.” To me, the true internalization of that message is what seems to be essential in achieving what Maria Lugones asks us to: to honestly and whole-heartedly recognize difference.
Lugones’s work is at once delightful and deeply provocative, and she has become for me the kind of author whose name on a piece of writing will be enough to compel me to sit down and read it based on that alone.
The piece in which this style is perhaps the most prominent is Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception, which I feel I cannot discuss without including Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes :On the Logic of Pluralist Feminisms. In both Lugones takes as her subject the relationship between white women and women of color living in the U.S. In Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception, Lugones describes the difficulty of inhabiting multiple worlds at once, something she suggests many women of color do in the U.S. Here (and I am condensing this idea into the tiniest of nutshells) Lugones uses the word “world” to describe a particular existence/experience. “One can be at the same time in a ‘world’ that constructs one as stereotypically latin, for example,” Lugones writes, “and in a world that constructs one as latin. Being stereotypically latin and being simply latin are different simultaneous constructions of persons that are a part of different ‘worlds.’” Thus, “world”-travelling becomes a way of navigating one’s own plurality.
It seems to me however, that “world”-travelling can also be the way to recognize plurality, as Lugones asks we attempt to do in her piece Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes :On the Logic of Pluralist Feminisms. The way I understand this concept is this: that true recognition of plurality involves conceptualizing yourself and others in a world that is not your own. I believe I drew this connection only because I read both of these essays back to back, and later simultaneously. It makes sense to me that the only way to truly comprehend plurality and difference in women is through attempting to see yourself, your world, and other women as they must be in their worlds. In this essay, Lugones writes, “You are in part what we make you up to be, and we are in part what you make us up to be.” To me, the true internalization of that message is what seems to be essential in achieving what Maria Lugones asks us to: to honestly and whole-heartedly recognize difference.
Lugones’s work is at once delightful and deeply provocative, and she has become for me the kind of author whose name on a piece of writing will be enough to compel me to sit down and read it based on that alone.