Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology

How do we understand feminism as a political practice? How is it a practice that changes our understanding of our selves and others?

Feminism was founded to provide a collective political movement for women. But subsequent generations of feminists have become preoccupied with the politics of identity, and a broader social conservatism has claimed politics to be obsolete and feminism as irrelevant. This has left the category of 'feminist politics' a troubling and much contested territory.

In this ground breaking new book, Kirsten Campbell takes up the debate, but instead of asking what feminist politics is or should be, she examines how feminism changes the ways we understand ourselves and others. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis as a starting point, Campbell examines contemporary feminism's turn to accounts of feminist 'knowing' to create new conceptions of the political, before going on to develop a theory of that feminist knowing as political practice in itself.

This book provides an important and exciting contribution to contemporary feminist debates, and will be essential reading for academics and students working in the field of gender politics.