{"id":8,"date":"2021-03-08T21:19:50","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T21:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaktini.site\/?page_id=8"},"modified":"2023-11-15T15:12:22","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T23:12:22","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/shaktini.site\/fr\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"Bio"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Namascar Shaktini celebrating 80th birthday<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born<\/strong>: Margaret Clarice Orr
8 January 1939 Atlanta, Georgia, United States<\/td><\/tr>
Education<\/strong>: University of California Berkeley; PhD in the History of Consciousness, University of California at Santa Cruz<\/td><\/tr>
Occupation(s)<\/strong>: Academic, Author, Activist<\/td><\/tr>
Known for<\/strong>: 1970-71Activism in the MLF (French women’s liberation movement) and the FHAR (French gay liberation movement)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
LIRE MONIQUE WITTIG AUJOURD\u2019HUI Beno\u00eet Auclerc,<\/strong> Yannick Chevalier<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Presses universitaires de Lyon<\/a> 2012 (OpenEdition) Pr\u00e9sentation des auteur.e.s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Namascar Shaktini, qui portait \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9poque le nom de son ex-mari, Margaret Stephenson, a v\u00e9cu en France de 1967 \u00e0 1971. Elle a \u00e9tudi\u00e9 \u00e0 la Sorbonne et \u00e0 l\u2019\u00c9cole pratique des hautes \u00e9tudes o\u00f9 elle a notamment suivi le s\u00e9minaire de Barthes surS\/Z<\/em>. Elle a milit\u00e9 d\u00e8s le d\u00e9but du mouvement de lib\u00e9ration des femmes. \u00ab L\u2019Am\u00e9ricaine non identifi\u00e9e \u00bb par la presse lors de l\u2019action devant l\u2019Arc de Triomphe le 26 ao\u00fbt 1970, aux c\u00f4t\u00e9s de Monique Wittig et de Christiane Rochefort, c\u2019est elle. La fondatrice du groupe des Polymorphes perverses, d\u00e9di\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9tude de la \u00ab politique sexuelle \u00bb \u00e0 partir des textes de Freud et de Marcuse, c\u2019est encore elle. De retour aux \u00c9tats-Unis, Margaret Stephenson d\u00e9cide de s\u2019identifier autrement que filialement ou maritalement. C\u2019est donc sous le nom de Namascar Shaktini qu\u2019elle entre \u00e0 l\u2019Universit\u00e9 de Californie de Santa Cruz o\u00f9 elle soutient en 1981 son doctorat en histoire de la conscience. Elle a enseign\u00e9 en Californie, en Oregon et en Floride o\u00f9 elle est actuellement professeur de litt\u00e9rature fran\u00e7aise \u00e0 la Florida Atlantic University. Elle a publi\u00e9 de nombreux articles consacr\u00e9s \u00e0 Monique Wittig et a notamment dirig\u00e9 le volumeOn Monique Wittig. Theoretical, Political, and Literary Essays<\/em> (University of Illinois Press, 2005).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yannick Chevalier est ma\u00eetre de conf\u00e9rences en stylistique fran\u00e7aise \u00e0 l\u2019Universit\u00e9 Lumi\u00e8re Lyon 2, pp 306-307<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About Namascar Shaktini.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Namascar Shaktini<\/strong> was born Margaret Clarice Orr on January 8, 1939 in Atlanta, GA to Edgar Orr, an Atlanta photographer, and Clarice Orr, on her 32nd birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is an American academic, professor of French and comparative literature who also played an important role in the creation of the French Women’s Liberation Movement<\/a> (known as the MLF) as well as the FHAR (French gay liberation movement<\/a>) while she was carrying out her doctoral research in Paris under the direction of Roland Barthes<\/a>. Her professional publications, all focused on French lesbian feminist writer Monique Wittig<\/a>, began with her Ph.D dissertation, The Problem of Gender and Subjectivity Posed by the New Subject Pronoun, “j\/e,” in the Writing of Monique Wittig<\/em>[1]<\/sup>.<\/em> She published a widely cited collection of critical esssays, On Monique Wittig: Theoretical, Political, and Literary Essays<\/em> edited by Namascar Shaktini[2]<\/sup>. According to one reviewer, “The achievement of this book is at least twofold. First, it argues convincingly against the previously dominant reading of Wittig that cast her as an essentialist, a humanist, and a lesbian separatist. Second, it successfully demonstrates that Wittig’s subversive writing is fundamentally engaged in a project ‘to investigate and expose the oppressive relation between gender and subjectivity in our shared language and culture (xi)’[3]<\/sup>. In a widely cited article, “Displacing the Phallic Subject: Wittig’s Lesbian Writing”<\/em>[4]<\/sup>, Shaktini claims that “Wittig’s reorganization of metaphor around the lesbian body represents an epistemological shift from what seemed until recently the absolute, central metaphor — the phallus (29).” The article focuses on Wittig’s “lesbianization” of mythical figures, where even the central figure of the “male Christ… is replaced by Christa the much-crucified” (41). Citing Shaktini,  Gillian Townsley claims, “the most striking image of the ‘lesbianized persona of Christ’ is found in poem 82, [of Wittig’s The Lesbian Body<\/em>] where the setting is a combined Golgotha\/Gethsemane scene ‘stripped of its phallic signifiers’.”[5]<\/sup> In addressing the frequent misreading by Anglo-American feminists of Wittig’s experimental book, Townsley says: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Finally, it is appropriate to consider the comments of Shaktini, renowned Wittig authority and compeer. She suggests that one reason why Anglo- American feminists have misread Wittig is that they have not paid enough attention to her self acknowledged debt to the French linguist Emile Benveniste and his theory of the speaking subject.[6]<\/sup> In brief, Benveniste considers the way in which the speaker voices their subjectivity as an ‘I’ and posits the indeterminateness of this ‘I’ as follows: There is no concept ‘I’ that incorporates all the Is that are uttered at every moment in the mouths of all speakers…. It is a term that cannot be identified except in … an instance of discourse and that has only a momentary reference. [I and you] do not refer to ‘reality’ or to ‘objective’ positions in space or time but to the utterance, unique each time, that contains them…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[They are] ’empty’ signs that are nonreferential with respect to ‘reality’.[7]<\/sup> Shaktini thus makes the connection between Benveniste’s ‘I’ and Wittig’s lesbian in that they are both ’empty signs’ able to be filled only in specific instances of discourse.[8]<\/sup>” <\/strong>(my emphasis)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Education and Personal Life<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Margaret Orr<\/strong> began her BA at the U of KY in 1956. She married Rev. Howard Willis Stephenson, III in 1958, changing her name to Margaret Stephenson<\/strong>, and divorcing in Reno, NV in 1961. She studied for the MA in Comp Lit at UC Berkeley<\/a>, 1964-66 during the Free Speech Movement and Vietnam war protests. She studied in Italy 1966-67 and in France 1967-71. She began doctoral studies at the Sorbonne<\/a> and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes<\/a> where she attended Roland Barthes<\/a>‘s S\/Z<\/em> seminar and researched Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt<\/a><\/em> in the French theater under Barthes’s direction. Discussions there widely accepted Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss<\/a>‘s view of the exchange of women by men as forming the basic structure of (patriarchal) society[9]<\/sup>. The idea of Emile Benveniste<\/a>, then a professor at the Coll\u00e8ge de France, that the concept of subjectivity is nothing other than subjectivity in language was current there at the very time that Benveniste, ironically, suffered a stroke leaving him without the power of speech for the remainder of his life. Having become radicalized as a militant materialist lesbian feminist, Margaret Stephenson returned to California in 1971, where she lived an itinerate life until 1974 when she changed her name to Namascar Shaktini<\/strong> and entered the History of Consciousness<\/a> doctoral program at UC, Santa Cruz where she co-founded the “Feminist Subgroup” and, after struggling with the institutional sexism, was finally awarded the Ph.D in 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Activism in Paris<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Manifesto and Vincennes demonstration<\/a><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Manifesto, First Published as “Combat pour la liberation de la femme”<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Monique Wittig<\/a>, in an interview (“Monique Wittig raconte” Prochoix<\/em> no. 46  Dec. 2008, pp 63-76), refers to her friend’s taken name, Shaktini, as well as her former married name, Stephenson (69), as she recounts the American’s arrival and participation (69-70, 72) in the group of women who would become the French Women’s Liberation Movement<\/a> (Mouvement de Lib\u00e9ration des Femmes<\/em>, known in France as the MLF). Wittig discusses the origins of the writing and signing of its manifesto, “Pour un Mouvement de Lib\u00e9ration des Femmes,” (For a Movement of Women’s Liberation)<\/strong> whose title was changed by the editor<\/strong> to “Combat pour la Lib\u00e9ration de la Femme” (Combat for the Liberation of Woman) Idiot International<\/em>, May 1970 pp 13-16). This first published text of the MLF was signed by herself, her sister Gille, Marcia Rothenberg and Margaret Stephenson (67, 74) — the four who also set their first demonstration at the University of Paris at Vincennes where the Manifesto would be distributed (72). Shaktini later translated and introduced the manifesto in her edited volume (Shaktini, 2005 pp 15-34).[10]<\/sup>  Marie-Jo Bonnet<\/a> in her book, Mon MLF<\/em>, also describes Shaktini’s early role in the MLF: “Margaret… is one of the quasi-founders since she signed Wittig’s article… with Gille Wittig and Marcia Rothenberg…. It catalized the mobilisation of the first ones who had a raised consciousness.[11]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Arrest at the Arch of Triumph Demonstration<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>
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She also participated in the laying of a wreath ironically dedicated to “The one more unknown than the soldier, his wife” at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arch of Triumph. According to Bonnet<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this action marked our solidarity with the women on strike who celebrated in New York the fifty year anniversary of the right to vote…. Christine [Delphy] led the procession [carrying the wreath] ahead of eight other women, Cathy Bernheim, Julie Dassin, Emmanu\u00e8le de Lesseps, Christiane Rochefort, Margaret Stephenson, Monique Wittig, Anne Zelensky, Monique Bourroux and Janine Sert.[12][13]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Feminist origins of the French Gay Liberation Movement and Shaktini’s role<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After her arrest and subsequent interrogation at the Pr\u00e9fecture, Shaktini withdrew from the ongoing central actions of the MLF, and in late fall 1970 founded a small MLF sub-group, “Perverse Polymorphes,” to study the theories of sexuality of Freud<\/a> and Herbert Marcuse<\/a>.[14]<\/sup> Anne-Marie Gr\u00e9lois, and her partner, Maryse Valat, were early members of this group and were also affiliated with the French homophile society, Arcadie<\/a> (11,000 men, 350 women). Marie-Jo Bonnet<\/a>, who joined the group the following February, provides a full discussion of the group and its role in forming an alliance between homosexual men and the women of the MLF — an alliance that would lead to the formation of the revolutionary gay liberation movement in France. Anne-Marie Gr\u00e9lois, her partner Maryse Valat, Marie-Jo Bonnet, and Margaret Stephenson organized the first meeting of the women of Arcadie at the end of Feb 1971, attended by some fifty women. The contact made there with a few politicized men, including Pierre Hahn and Guy Hocquenghem<\/a> led five days later to the first joint action.[15][16][17]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MLF was calling for protest of a meeting of the anti abortion movement, “Laissez-les vivre” (let them live), to be held at Maubert Mutualit\u00e9. “The boys want to come with us” writes Bonnet…. “On March 5, 1971 all the women of the MLF are present in the great hall of the Mutualit\u00e9…. The orators can’t stop the tumult, so the security officers decide to attack them, throwing out the boys, one by one, dragging them outside at the feet of the riot police.”[18]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To recover from our emotions, we meet in Margaret’s little room which is just above the Mutuality. We toast to the victory while eating our sausages.”[19]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonnet cites Hocquenghem giving ample credit to the 1971 Feminist Origins of the French Gay Liberation Movement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘It is women,’ Guy Hocquenghem will remember the following year in a remarkable text, ‘The Homosexual revolt targets the patriarchal, capitalist family. It announces itself from the beginning at the side of women.’ He goes on to write ‘It’s no mystery for anyone that women had a predominant role in the creation of the FHAR. The MLF was the inspiration of our movement in its beginnings and perhaps there would never have been a beginning if women had not themselves begun. We copied their style and their functioning.’[20]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guy Hocquenghem and other leaders of the FHAR published a collection of anonymous texts including a white paper by Shaktini, summarized and discussed at length by Marie-Jo Bonnet:  “Like Margaret, I think that homosexuality is in itself revolutionary…. In June [1971], Margaret published her ‘Some Reflections on Lesbianism as a Revolutionary Position’ in Rapport contre la normalit\u00e9<\/em> (report against normality)” (Bonnet, 85-86).[21]<\/sup>  [22]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

1.     University of California, Santa Cruz, 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.     Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.     Salah Khan, “On Monique Wittig: Theoretical, Political, and Literary Essays ed. by Namascar Shaktini ” (review) Women in French Studies<\/em>, Vol 15, 2007, Published by Women in French Association, pp. 132-33.” (Project MUSE https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu<\/a> \u203a article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.     SIGNS: Journal of Women in Culture and Society<\/em>, Vol 8, No 1, Autumn 1982, pp 29-44. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.     “Shaktini, [“Displacing the Phallic Subject”], p 41″ [in] Gillian Townsley, The Straight Mind in Corinth: Queer Readings Across 1 Corinthians 11:2-16<\/em>, Semeia Studies<\/em> No 88, SBL Press, 2017, p 233.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.     “Shaktini, 2005,” 156″.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7.     Townsley thus summarizes Benveniste’s concept of subjectivity in Problems<\/em>, 226, 219.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

8.    Shaktini ([“The Critical Mind and the Lesbian Body” in Shaktini, On Monique Wittig<\/em>], p 157). Cited in Gillian Townsley, The Straight Mind in Corinth: Queer Readings Across 1 Corinthians 11:2-16<\/em>, (SBL Press, Atlanta: 2017) p 109.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9.     “The emergence of symbolic thought must have required that women, like words, should be things that were exchanged.” Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship<\/em> (Boston: Beacon, 1969) p 496.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10.  The English manifesto is also accessible online at shaktini.site where she gives her own account of her arrival and participation in the beginning of the MLF with Wittig (shaktini.site\/How I Met Monique Wittig)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11.  Margaret …. est l\u2019une des quasi-fondatrices puisqu\u2019elle a sign\u00e9 l\u2019article de Monique Wittig, \u00ab Combat pour la lib\u00e9ration de la femme \u00bb avec Gille Wittig et Marcia Rothenberg. Il est paru dans L\u2019Idiot international<\/em> en avril (sic) 1970 et a catalys\u00e9 la mobilisation des premi\u00e8res \u00e9veill\u00e9es. (Bonnet, Marie-Jo. Mon MLF<\/em> (French Edition) Albin Michel. Kindle Edition. \u00ab Combat pour la lib\u00e9ration de la femme \u2013 Par-del\u00e0 la lib\u00e9ration-gadget elles d\u00e9couvrent la lutte de classe \u00bb, L\u2019Idiot international<\/em>, avril (sic) 1970, p 23,  Note p 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12.  Elle a aussi particip\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019action de l\u2019Arc de triomphe, le 26 ao\u00fbt [1970], en hommage \u00e0 la femme inconnue du soldat inconnu. Il s\u2019agissait de marquer le coup en exprimant notre solidarit\u00e9 avec les Am\u00e9ricaines en gr\u00e8ve qui c\u00e9l\u00e9braient \u00e0 New York les cinquante ans du droit de vote. \u00ab Il y a plus inconnu que le soldat inconnu, sa femme \u00bb…. Christine ouvrait la marche devant huit autres femmes: Cathy Bernheim, Julie Dassin, Emmanu\u00e8le de Lesseps, Christine Delphy, Christiane Rochefort, Margaret Stephenson, Monique Wittig, Anne Zelensky, Monique Bourroux et Janine Sert. (Bonnet, pp 23-24, 31-32).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13.  Bonnet cites one of the newspaper headlines: “A small commando in skirts did not succeed in laying their flowers under the Arch of Triumph.” (\u00ab Un petit commando en jupons n\u2019a pas r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 d\u00e9poser ses fleurs sous l\u2019Arc de triomphe \u00bb, France Soir<\/em>, 27 ao\u00fbt (August 27) 1970, Note p. 31<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14.  Bonnet provides a detailed discussion of the study group, Perverse Polymorphes: “Les Polymorphes perverses:\u2028Nous sommes une dizaine de femmes attir\u00e9es par le th\u00e8me propos\u00e9 par Margaret…. Margaret Stephenson est \u00e0 l\u2019initiative du groupe…. Elle s\u00e9journe en France gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 une bourse d\u2019\u00e9tudes de deux ans. Elle… a un go\u00fbt prononc\u00e9 pour la th\u00e9orisation de la r\u00e9volution sexuelle. C\u2019est son objectif d\u00e9clar\u00e9 : lire Herbert Marcuse avec nous, l\u2019auteur de L\u2019Homme unidimensionnel traduit en fran\u00e7ais par Monique Wittig et l\u2019auteur en 1968…. Margaret a d\u00e9j\u00e0 une exp\u00e9rience de plusieurs mois au sein du mouvement…. Comme Margaret a une petite chambre rue Valette, dans le Ve arrondissement, je vais la voir souvent pour discuter \u00ab politique sexuelle \u00bb (Bonnet, p. 29).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15.  (Vers la fin f\u00e9vrier, nous accompagnons Anne-Marie \u00e0 la r\u00e9union d\u2019Arcadie r\u00e9serv\u00e9e aux filles (Bonnet, p. 29).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16.  \u00ab On veut venir avec vous. \u00bb \u2013 \u00ab Non, pas aujourd\u2019hui. \u00bb Pierre Hahn insiste. Apr\u00e8s tout, pourquoi ne pas faire un groupe r\u00e9volutionnaire avec nos \u00ab alli\u00e9s objectifs \u00bb? (Bonnet p. 30)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17.  L\u2019occasion de cr\u00e9er une solidarit\u00e9 \u00ab objective \u00bb avec les gar\u00e7ons, dans l\u2019action f\u00e9ministe, se pr\u00e9sente cinq jours plus tard. Le professeur Lejeune organise un nouveau meeting dans la grande salle de la Mutualit\u00e9 avec des m\u00e9decins oppos\u00e9s \u00e0 l\u2019avortement th\u00e9rapeutique et des autorit\u00e9s morales r\u00e9actionnaires. Le MLF appelle au boycott. Les gar\u00e7ons veulent venir avec nous. Bonnet, p. 32.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18.  Le 5 mars 1971, les femmes du mouvement sont pr\u00e9sentes au grand complet dans la grande salle de la Mutualit\u00e9. … Les orateurs n\u2019arrivent pas \u00e0 stopper le chahut, alors le service d\u2019ordre d\u00e9cide de vider les gars un \u00e0 un en fon\u00e7ant sur eux… puis en les jetant dehors aux pieds des CRS (Bonnet, pp. 32-33).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19.  Pour se remettre de nos \u00e9motions, nous nous retrouvons dans la petite chambre de Margaret qui est juste au-dessus de la Mutualit\u00e9. Nous trinquons \u00e0 la victoire en mangeant nos saucissons (Bonnet p. 33).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20.  Car ce sont les femmes qui ont donn\u00e9 l\u2019impulsion du FHAR, comme le rappellera Guy Hocquenghem l\u2019ann\u00e9e suivante dans un texte remarquable. \u00ab La r\u00e9volte homosexuelle prend pour cible la famille patriarcale capitaliste. Elle se proclame d\u2019embl\u00e9e aux c\u00f4t\u00e9s des femmes. \u00bb Plus loin, il pr\u00e9cise : \u00ab Ce n\u2019est un myst\u00e8re pour personne que les femmes ont eu un r\u00f4le pr\u00e9dominant dans la cr\u00e9ation du FHAR. Le MLF a \u00e9t\u00e9 l\u2019inspirateur de notre mouvement \u00e0 ses d\u00e9buts et peut-\u00eatre n\u2019y aurait-il jamais eu de d\u00e9but si les femmes n\u2019avaient elles-m\u00eames commenc\u00e9. Nous en avons copi\u00e9 le style et le fonctionnement’ (Bonnet, p. 56).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21.  (Comme Margaret, je pense que l\u2019homosexualit\u00e9 est en soi r\u00e9volutionnaire. … En juin [1971], Margaret publie ses \u00ab Quelques r\u00e9flexions sur le lesbianisme comme position r\u00e9volutionnaire \u00bb dans le Rapport contre la normalit<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>. Ce recueil de textes du FHAR, tous anonymes, est publi\u00e9 aux \u00e9ditions Champ libre, \u00e0 l\u2019initiative de Fran\u00e7oise d\u2019Eaubonne, Guy Hocquenghem et Alain Prique… )<\/p>\n\n\n\n

22.  Rapport contre la normalit<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>, sympt\u00f4me 3, \u00e9d. Champ libre, Paris, 1971, pp 83-88. [in] Bonnet, Note p. 91).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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