Signifying woman: culture and chaos in Rousseau, Burke, and Mill

Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Political Theory as a Signifying Practice -- 2. "Une Maitresse Imperieuse": Woman in Rousseau's Semiotic Republic -- The Maternal Voice -- The Field of Female Voice and Vision -- Making a Man -- The Semiotic Republic -- 3. The "Furies of Hell": Woman in Burke's "French Revolution -- Terror and Delight -- Burke's Reflections as Self-Reflections -- Breaking the Code -- The Furies at Versailles -- Postscript: The Maternal Republic -- 4. The "Innocent Magdalen": Woman in Mill's Symbolic Economy -- Political Economy of the Body -- Political Economy of the Female Body -- Angel in the House -- Angel out of the House -- The Innocent Magdalen -- 5. Resignifying the Woman Question in Political Theory -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W

Woman has been defined in classic political theory as elusive yet dangerous, by her nature fundamentally destructive to public life. In the view of Linda M.G. Zerilli, however, gender relations shape the very grammar of citizenship. In deeply textured interpretations of Rousseau, Burke, and Mill, Zerilli recasts our understanding of woman as the agent of social chaos and makes a major advance for feminist political theory. Zerilli draws on the work of Julia Kristeva to help explain woman's traditionally ambiguous position, as a frontier figure neither inside nor outside political space. She discusses Rousseau, Burke, and Mill (as representatives of republican, conservative, and liberal thought) and traces how each author uses woman rhetorically as he sets forth a distinct political vision in response to the social conflicts of his time. These writers invoke "woman" to articulate not only the disruptive forces of sexuality but also those of class conflict and its resolution. Menacing the stability of meaning itself, woman symbolizes the looming social, economic, and political forces of civilization (for Rousseau), of revolution (for Burke), of capitalism (for Mill) - that threaten conventional distinctions of gender and class