Federica
Giardini has been on DWF's editorial board since dal 1996. She often
collaborates with the philosophical community "Diotima"; with
other women she has created "Matri_x". She teaches at the Università
Roma Tre.
Reviews for DWF
Articles for DWF
The obvious and the obtuse, 1997, n. 36, pp. 33-36
Where is politics in what you're doing? If an elder woman asks and if the answer fails to come, there could be some good reason and some good idea to re-start with. Thinking how history in feminist politics crosses single lives, for instance.
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On the Imaginary, again, 1998, n. 37-38, pp.11-18
Why has cinema become such a fulfilment of primary needs? The author reconsiders the conceptions of the imaginary according, on the one hand, to Lacan and on the other to Irigaray and Feminist Film Theory.
She then argues that pleasant and unpleasant bodily affections inform the sense of our representations and relationship. Affections are the body of sense. According to Kristeva, this is the real "political revolution", against images which engulf us denying the possibility of our making a sense of our own.
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GIARDINI Federica - BOTTI Caterina, A dialogue, 1999, n. 44, pp. 9-19
Two "young" feminist philosophers answer to the questions raised by the Editorial. The main conclusion concerns the strength women's thought still has, even though new conceptual and political tools are required by historical changes.
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GIARDINI Federica - CACIOLI Patrizia - FRAIRE Manuela, The letter A of a
still unknown alphabet, 1999, n. 44, pp. 31-40
Cacioli and Giardini interview Fraire. The actual crisis of women's initiatives has to be related to the denial of two important issues: 1) the obstacles found in transmitting power from woman to woman, 2) the scarce capacity of dealing with conflict among women, which are two requirements for the growth of the political relationship among them.
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(edited by), Politics, Knowledge and the academy [S. Gubar, R. Wiegman e
C. Heilbrun], 2000, n. 45-46, pp. 74-99
Presenting passages from a debate between Susan Gubar, Robyn Wiegman and Caroliyn Heilbrun published in "Critical Inquiry" in 1999, Giardini underlines that the issues at stake take on a specific interest in the Italian situation, where the problems of the relation between the academy and feminist thought are different from the USA.
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GIARDINI Federica - DE VITA Tonia - CORSI Rita, Introduction, 2001, n. 1,
pp. 4-7
Starting from a growing difficulty in the relationships between "women who came before" and the younger ones, the editors introduce this somehow peculiar issue. The problem at stake is not a generational one, but rather the possibility of producing new political forms.
The crisis in these relationships is not a personal matter, but a more general one, concerning the changes in reality, in politics, and also a kind of resistance of the women that enacted the feminist event in the Seventies to see that time is passing by.
How can one find a distance while preserving the admiration and the debt towards these women? In other words, how can younger feminists revolt against what they feel is no more powerful without enacting a matricide?
The way chosen is an experimental one: thirteen "women coming after" - after the great feminist season of the Sixties and Seventies - write a imaginary letter, not signed with the real name of the authors, to a young friend about the relationship with an older woman, about the problems and their possible solutions.
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GIARDINI Federica - STELLA Rosetta, Exploring new lands, 2001, n. 4, pp. 6-15
Stella and Giardini discuss the issue of a reciprocal acknowledgement between women of the others significance, authority, capacity, importance and acknowledgement that may result in consequences different from the original intention. Both underline that women are concerned about the forms and expressions of women's liberty.
Giardini remarks that for a younger woman approaching new themes, daring to pose new questions, may produce confusion if she hasn't a fruitful exchange with a woman whose authority she acknowledges.
Stella points to an additional problem, i.e. the difficulty of opening up a conflict with other women; anyway, what is certainly important is that a political relation with another woman should have a decisive weight in all situations.
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GIARDINI Federica - MASI Paola, From the voice of other women, 2001, n. 4,
pp. 46-55
The authors propose a dialogue with two contemporary women (Sontag and Roy) who intervened immediately after the events of September 11, 2001, with the aim of showing the political usefulness of starting (and not ignoring) the voice of (some) other (living) women.
Going further the analysis of Roy on the twin male leaders of terrorism and war, the concept of disloyalty is proposed in three perspectives: the possibilities to openly investigate the scared emotions to the events; the deep roots of openness to other, and hence to other cultures; the differences among war, conflict and duel.
Deriving from Sontag' s claim against the reduction of policy to a bad psychotherapy, the authors readdress "the war against terrorism" as a chance to critically understand and change the arrogant and forgetful political horizon which is one of the worst aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001.
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GIARDINI Federica - MASI Paola, Forum, 2002, n. 3-4, pp. 127-151
La differenza politica. Donne e cittadinanza (Political Difference: Women and Citizenship), Maria Luisa Boccia's recent book (Il Saggiatore, Milano, 2002) is the starting point of a reflection on the themes it presents. Masi and Giardini highlight the strong points of the book as well as the questions it leaves open.
Basile reflects on the limits of the discourse on the mother, especially dominant in Italian feminism in the 90s, and proposes to rethink an aspect of the maternal that does no longer pertain exclusively to sexual difference, but encompasses the question of the species.
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Dynamics, 2003, n. 1, pp. 32-35
Through an analysis of the interrelated workings of space, movement and tension, the author investigates sexual difference as a/the dynamic element of life, an interval that generates meaning in the always renewed play of inter-subjectivity.
With reference to Irigaray and to the Italian thinkers of sexual difference (from Lonzi to Muraro), Giardini's reflections on this cluster of philosophical and experiential questions open up further areas both of theoretical inquire and of political practice.
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Storm, Canto V. Editorial note, 2004, n. 3-4, pp. 2-4
This issue continues experimenting with new ways of producing the journal. Usually, a subject is selected in relation to either a specific proposal of one of the editors, or as clearly having a political significance in the present moment; it is then thrashed out for at least a month (often more) in the weekly meetings of the editorial board, in order to prepare a short written statement, then to given to the women we wish to write upon it.
Thus, the fact that in this case the proposal came from a woman outside the editorial board (Rosetta Stella), who then acted as a sort of 'guest editor' in close cooperation with a member of the editorial board (Federica Giardini), marks a significant departure from the usual procedure (in part building upon previous experiences). The choice of contributors was Stella and Giardini's but the contributions were also discussed by the editorial board.
The starting point of the issue is Canto 5 of Dante's Inferno as a pretext to reflect on the present state of relationships between women and men and more generally on the eternal question of love.
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GIARDINI Federica - STELLA Rosetta, Starting from the canto, 2004, n. 3-4,
pp. 5-8
Canto 5 of Dante's Inferno is a classical locus of both women's and men's sentimental education. Here it is a pretext to play with its wise poetry, to be moved by it but also to question it, to poke unrespectful fun at it with an irony born of the comparison with our own lives or to follow its meanings to then give them an unexpected turn.
Looking for words on the border of a wild interpretation, among women. First three women (Stella, Giardini, Chiaromonte, Fiori) discuss the Canto, then they ask some other women (Rossi, Tatafiore, Mambro, Vantaggiato, Scaraffia) to do the same; the resulting reflections outline a picture of love as it is experienced today.
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La bufera
infernal, che mai non resta, 2004,
n. 3-4, pp. 5-8
Abstract not found.
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The force and the grace. About a femininisation of force, 2005, n. 2-3, pp. 34-40
Some selected moments of the movie Kill Bill by Quentin Tarantino – Uma Thurman’s fight in the kitchen, her recovering from paralysis, getting out of her grave – are the starting point to think about new expressions of womanly force nowadays, different from power and from violence. It is the clue for a new symbolical space and the political practices it requires.
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Reviews for DWF
BRENNAN Teresa, History after Lacan, London-New York, Routledge, 1993
rev. by Federica Giardini, 1996, n. 29, pp. 100-103
Tu che mi guardi, tu che mi racconti. Filosofia della narrazione, Milano,
Feltrinelli, 1997
rev. by Federica Giardini, 1997, n. 34/35, pp. 129-132
HONIG Bonnie (ed), Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt, The Pennsylvania
State University, 1995
rev. by Federica Giardini, 1997, n. 33, pp. 85-90
PAPA Sebastiana, Verso la Foce. Riflessioni fotografiche sui Vecchi,
Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 1998
rev. by Federica Giardini, 1999, n. 41, pp. 109-111
ZAMBONI Chiara, La filosofia donna, Verona, Demetra, 1997
rev. by Federica Giardini, 1999, n. 41, pp. 105-109
STOLLER Silvia - VETTER Helmuth (Hg.), Phänomenologie und Gerschlechterdifferenz,
Wien, WUV-Universitäts-verlag, 1997
rev. by Federica Giardini, 2000, n. 47, pp. 108-112