Teresa de Lauretis

Teresa de Lauretis

Teresa de Lauretis (Template:IPA; born 1938, Bologna) is an Italian author and Distinguished Professor Emerita of the History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her areas of interest include semiotics, psychoanalysis, film theory, literary theory, feminism, women's studies, lesbian and queer studies. She has also written on science fiction. Fluent in English and Italian, she writes in both languages. Additionally, her work has been translated into sixteen other languages.

De Lauretis received her doctorate in Modern Languages and Literatures from Bocconi University in Milan before coming to the United States. She joined the History of Consciousness with Hayden White, Donna Haraway, Fredric Jameson and Angela Davis. She has held visiting professorships at universities worldwide including ones in Canada, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Argentina, Chile, France, Spain, Hungary, Croatia, Mexico and the Netherlands. She currently lives in San Francisco, CA, but often spends time in Italy and the Netherlands.

Work

De Lauretis' account of subjectivity as a product of "being subject/ed to semiosis" (i.e., making meanings and being made by them) helps to theoretically resolve and overcome the tension between human action (agency) and structure. She makes use of Umberto Eco's reading of C.S. Peirce to establish her notion of the semiotics of experience. She brings corporeality back to the discourse on the constitution of subjectivity, which has been conceived mainly in linguistic terms. Her semiotics is not just the semiotics of language but also the semiotics of visual images and non-verbal practices. Her (Peircean) "habit" or "habit-change" is often compared to Bourdieu's notion of habitus.

Michel Foucault’s analysis of the body excludes the consideration of the specificity of the female body that many feminists have criticized. Supplementing the failure, gender should be one of the effects of technology, which renders the basic intelligibility of the body, and that turns to De Lauretis’ "technology of gender". De Lauretis coined the term "queer theory" although how it is used today differs from what she originally suggested by the term.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> She coined the term in February 1990 at a conference at the University of California, Santa Cruz. After the conference, the "proceedings" were then "collected in a 1991 special issue of Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies."<ref name=":0" /> De Lauretis discussed the main ideas of queer theory in the issue, making an impact on the field of queer studies.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref> She suggested that queer studies should be studied separately from lesbian and gay studies. De Lauretis states that "queer theory challenged norms" that enforce inequalities regarding "social identities" such as gender, sexuality, class, and race.<ref name=":0" /> Although she coined the term she abandoned it barely three years later because it had been taken over by those mainstream forces and institutions it was coined to resist.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Honors, awards and grants

• Guest of honour, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina (2014)<ref name=honors>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Doctor honoris causa, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina (2014)<ref name=honors/>
• Distinguished Career Award, Society for Cinema and Media Studies (2010)<ref name=honors/>
• Winner, Choice Magazine Outstanding Reference/Academic Book Award (2009)<ref name=choicemag>Template:Cite book</ref>
• IHR Humanities Research Fellowship (2007)<ref name=honors/>
• Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa, University of Lund, Sweden (2005)<ref name=honors/>
• UCHRI Resident Faculty Fellowship, University of California, Irvine (2003-2004)<ref name=honors/>
• Guggenheim Fellowship (1993)<ref name=honors/>
• NEH Fellowship for University Teachers (1992)<ref name=honors/>
• Conference Grant, Humanities Division, University of California, Santa Cruz (1990)<ref name=honors/>
• Conference Grant, Research Council of Canada (1884)<ref name=honors/>
• Research Fellowship, Center for Twentieth Century Studies, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee (1982–83)<ref name=honors/>
• Grant in Media Studies, National Endowment for the Arts (1977–78)<ref name=honors/>

Bibliography

Books (English)

• Freud's Drive: Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Film (2008)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=choicemag/>
• Figures of Resistance: Essays in Feminist Theory (2007)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The Practice of Love: Lesbian Sexuality and Perverse Desire (1994)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (1987)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Feminist Studies/Critical Studies (1986)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (1984)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The Cinematic Apparatus (1980)<ref>Papers and discussions from a conference held Feb. 22-24, 1978 by the Center for Twentieth Century Studies, University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee.Template:Cite book</ref>
• The Technological Imagination (1980)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Anthologies or collections she edited or co-edited

• Feminist Studies/Critical Studies (1986)
• The Cinematic Apparatus (1980)
• The Technological Imagination (1980)

Journals

• Guest-edited "Queer Theory" issue of differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (1991)
• (with David Allen) "Theoretical Perspectives in Cinema" issue of Ciné-Tracts: A Journal of Film and Cultural Studies (1977).

Books (Italian)

• La sintassi del desiderio: struttura e forme del romanzo sveviano (Ravenna: Longo, 1976)
• Umberto Eco (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1981)
• Sui generis (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1996)
• Pratica d'amore : percorsi del desiderio perverso (Milano: Tartaruga, 1997)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Soggetti eccentrici (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1999)

External links

• Teresa de Lauretis (Official Webpage) Template:Webarchive
• Teresa de Lauretis Template:Webarchive
• Teresa de Lauretis at UCSC