ABSTRACT
Difference may well be the sign of our times. In the United States, for example, feminist theories seeking to negotiate the problematic of gender, come to terms with various forms of essentialism, or to counter real world discrimination, have placed difference firmly on the critical agenda. Gay and lesbian studies, too, are centrally concerned with alternative epistemologies, and with resisting coarse constructions of difference that may prove to be sociopolitically disadvantageous to their communities. And perhaps most notably, race as a category permeates a good deal of humanistic discourse, providing innumerable opportunities for a wide range of reflection upon difference. There are, as is to be expected, many points of divergence, but if we had to isolate one overriding concern, it may well be the attempt, in Gayatri Spivak’s words, to undermine “the story of the straight, white, Judeo-Christian, heterosexual man of property as the ethical universal” (Spivak with Rooney 1989, 146).
