From sex objects to sexual subjects

the long version

In From Sex Objects to Sexual Subjects, Claudia Moscovici investigates various historical formulations of subjects and subjectivity as expressed in the works of Rousseau, Diderot and Kant in order to discuss several contemporary feminist and philosophical critiques of these theories. By tracing the continuities and ruptures between these eighteenth-century philosophical doctrines and the modern writings of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray and others, Moscovici is able to trace the development of certain central debates that organize both current scholarly work and contemporary social life. Moscovici's reading of these historically disparate claims about subjectivity in conjunction with each other brings together two of the most pressing discussions in current critical feminist theory: the wide-ranging discussion of "post-modern" subjectivities, and the debates about public discourse and shared public spaces. The book offers a well-grounded critique of both masculinist and universalist theories of subjectivity, and also proposes an alternative formulation of "partial" democratic citizenship based upon more egalitarian codes of democratic justice and representation.