The Vagina Monologues

PART 2 OF 4

At the NWSA conference last month my director spoke with a professor who 
has built a course around the Vagina Monologues.  I am very interested 
in building a similar course and would appreciate response from anyone 
on the list who can send me information.

Please reply privately to:  ml.hopps  AT  verizon.net or
mlhopps  AT  tcnj.edu

Mary Lynn W. Hopps
The College of New Jersey

About five or six  years ago two men announced a play they were working on,
called "My Johnson Speaks."  I have no idea if that ever materialized, but
if so it might be a very interesting partner for "The Vagina Monologues" in
a course.

D.

---------------------------------
daphne.patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu

[in response to Daphne Patai]

Yes, it did, at Columbia.  I believe recently.  A search for "penis" at the
www.columbia.edu website will bring up info.

anaserene  AT  adelphia.net

Here's the info about "My Johnson Speaks" -- starring Dave Goodman:


http://www.electricpresskit.com/johnson/



          |\      _,,,---,,_        Hope Munro Smith, PhD
  ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_
         |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
        '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)        hopems  AT  mail.utexas.edu
      Don't dream it, be it

I'd like to suggest that in a Vagina Monologues course my essay "Vaginal
Aesthetics" be used.  It's coming out  this fall in Hypatia:  A Journal of
Feminist Philosophy.

Joanna Frueh

Professor of Art History
Department of Art/224
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno, NV 89557-0007
email    jfrueh  AT  unr.nevada.edu

Kim Q. Hall's article "Queerness, Disability, and the Vagina
Monologues" is an excellent piece that addresses both the essentialist
discourse of the play as well as the way in which VM otherizes and in
fact, demonizes certain bodies. I don't believe this piece is
published as of yet.  Kim Hall is at Appalachian State
University.

Gillian Wickwire, Emory Women's Studies

On 7/5/03 11:50 AM, "Gillian Wickwire" <gillianwickwire  AT  HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Kim Q. Hall's article "Queerness, Disability, and the Vagina Monologues"
> is an excellent piece that addresses both the essentialist discourse of
> the play as well as the way in which VM otherizes and in fact, demonizes
> certain bodies. I don't believe this piece is published as of yet.  Kim
> Hall is at Appalachian State University.

As someone quoted in Hall's article: she does not seem to understand
that press releases I wrote on behalf of Intersex Society of North
America (regarding the use of intersex "vagina fairy tale" in "The
Vagina Monologues") were written in activist context, with specific
realistic activist goals. They were written to influence a specific
group of people in order to bring about a specific result.

Okay, to be more specific: the discussion of intersex in "The Vagina
Monologues" was trivializing and offensive, and my goal was to use
it as an opportunity to raise awareness about intersex experiences.
I chose to do so not by calling for boycotts or pressuring Eve Ensler
to change the text, but by urging campus organizers of V-DAY events
to compensate for the play's problems by educating their campus
about intersex issues through film, discussion, and handouts.

In this process, I intentionally left out other criticisms I could
have made about the play, such as its essentialism or its colonialist
"othering" of non-Western women. Had I made these arguments, it
would have seriously undermined my ability to influence campus
V-DAY organizers (which is evident by the fact that even the minor
criticisms we've made about the play were dismissed by some feminists
as unproductive and unfeminist).

Kim Hall critiqued my activist statements for not going far enough,
which is that I failed to address the play's more fundamental flaw
of essentialism. But if I had criticized the play's essentialism,
I would be criticizing the whole basis of the play rather than just
a small portion of it, which would have made it impossible for me
to convince V-DAY campus organizers to collaborate with us. The end
result of this theoretically vigorous stance would be that there
wouldn't be any education about intersex issues.

In activism, being effective is often more important than being
theoretically flawless. Effective activists don't simply go around
blasting everything they disagree: they carefully devise strategies
to change it. Any scholars reading activist statements thus need
to recognize the political context in which such statements have
been made. I believe that Hall took my statements out of context
when she critiqued them as if they came from a scholarly project,
demanding them to prioritize analytical and theoretical
vigorousness over political usefulness.

Just so that you won't misunderstand me: I am not arguing that
activists should be allowed to be less than honest, but that they
should be allowed to have priorities that are different from
academics who study social issues. ISNA's goal was to raise the
awareness of intersex experiences, not to deconstruct binary gender
system or to challenge essentialist association between vagina
and womanhood.

FYI, here are some of the things I wrote online about "The Vagina
Monologues":

Intersex Resources for V-DAY 2003
http://www.ipdx.org/vday2003/

ISNA's V-DAY Challenge 2002
http://www.isna.org/events/vday/

ISNA & The Vagina Monologues
http://eminism.org/interchange/20020605-fablist.html

"Othering" of Non-Western Women in "The Vagina Monologues"
http://eminism.org/interchange/20030310-queerdisability.html


Emi Koyama <emi  AT  eminism.org>
Director, Intersex Initiative
http://www.intersexinitiative.org/

I have an article titled "Dislocating Vaginas: Representations,
Misrepresentations, and Lack of Representation in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues,"
which was published under The New Jersey Projects' annual book for 2003.  The
article navigates the essentialist and universalist issues throughout the play.

I haven't built a course around the VM, but I do teach it in my course
on the body in literature and culture.  I teach it with a chapter of
Natalie Angier's Woman:  An Intimate Geography entitled "Default Line:
Is the Female Body a Passive Construct?"  I dont' know about other
courses, but in my course, we always analyze Ensler with a critical
eye. Personally, I find the whole concept of "vagina, vagina, me"
counter to my concept of myself as a thinking woman/human; my students
usually have very lively debates about whether Ensler is
essentialist/retrograde, etc. There is rarely consensus in the class,
which makes discussion worthwhile.

By the way, Susan Bordo's book My Father's Body might make an
interesting contrast to Ensler, depending on the maturity of the
students.

Anya Silver

 *******************************************
Dr. Anya Krugovoy Silver
Assistant Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies
Mercer University
1400 Coleman Ave.       "Either you know the reason you're alive
Macon, GA 31207-0001     or nothing makes any difference."
                                    --Anton Chekhov
silver_ak  AT  mercer.edu

I have an article that discusses vagina monologues and a mythic tradition
about language associated with female sexual speech: The Naked Goddess:
Pornography and the Sacred, Theology and Sexuality 9:2, 2003, 180-200.

Jane Caputi, Professor, Women's Studies, Florida Atlantic University, Boca
Raton, FL=A0 33431. jjxxcaputi  AT  aol.com

another thing to consider using for such a class is the "Curb Your
Enthusiasm" episode (Larry David, HBO) that references the play as well as an incest
support group -- this would indubitably lead to quite a discussion.

jane caputi, women's studies, florida atlantic university
jjxxcaputi  AT  aol.com

Given the recent discussion on _The Vagina Monologues_, I hopet some of 
you will be interested in sending us the articles mentioned, or new 
work, for an anthology we're putting together:


The Vagina Monologues.  Papers are solicited for a collection of 
critical essays on Eve Ensler's play, and the V-Day movement.  The 
volume will examine the distinctive nature of the play/movement, 
specifically the indissoluble relationship between 1) the text of The 
Vagina Monologues, 2) the event of various performances of the play, and 
3) the larger context of the V-Day movement (the V-Day College Campaign 
and the World Wide V-Day Campaign).  Among a variety of possible 
focuses, the anthology seeks essays that address the following in 
particular: the way this three-fold relationship at work in The Vagina 
Monologues impacts the standard connections between sites of cultural 
production (national, political, sexual, racial, etc.); the introduction 
of "male monologues" to the play in the performances of 2003, and the 
way in which the presence of "male" identities affects the play's 
critical engagement with traditional conceptions of gender and the 
political status of women; the effectiveness of the play/movement (the 
degree of its tangible activism, as well as its limitations); the play's 
persuasiveness in different cultural contexts across the globe ("Third 
World" performances as opposed to "first world," "east" as opposed to 
"west," "north" as opposed to "south"); the "usefulness" of the play in
terms of the proceeds it generates, and the distribution of proceeds
(10% going to RAWA in 2002, 10% going to the "Indian Country Project" in
2003); and the position of The Vagina Monologues in the discipline of
feminism (i.e., is the play/movement an "essentialist" or a
"constructionist" feminist text? or both?).   Final papers (20-25 pp)
are due 1 November 2003.  Send inquiries and papers to Adrienne
McCormick (mccormic  AT  fredonia.edu) and/or Robert Marzec
(marzec  AT  fredonia.edu) English Department, SUNY Fredonia, Fredonia NY
14063.

Can I add to this?

The "Conversations" section of the journal International
Feminist Journal of Politics is planning to put together a
selection of pieces on the Vagina Monologues. We invite the
submission of short critical pieces - we are especially looking
for queer readings.


Cheers

Marysia Zalewski


----------------------
Dr Marysia Zalewski
Reader
Centre for Women's Studies
School of Sociology and Social Policy
Queen's University
Belfast
BT7 1NN