Abstract

Luce Irigaray is a French national, born in Belgium in 1930. Her initial training was undertaken at Louvain, and her earlier work was on Paul Valéry. She then moved into psychology, linguistics and psychoanalysis. The book Speculum formed the substance of her Doctorate of Letters thesis, at the University of Paris VIII. She is a now Director of Research in Philosophy at the National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris. Her network goes far beyond the academic, and her influence in the field of ideas is very widespread, in academic circles, among feminists, and among the thinking public in general. She is a frequent visitor to Italy, and contributes regularly to the newspaper of the Italian Communist Party. Luce Irigaray's recent work takes her to the forefront of psycho-linguistic enquiry, particularly in the area of gender in language