ABSTRACT
In The Laugh of the Medusa, arguably one of her best-known essays, Hélène Cixous urges women to write about “their” selves. Cixous is a woman “author” of our age who summons other women to contribute to the history of writing philosophy and literature. This call from a woman to other women has a momentous meaning, even though women since antiquity have never stopped writing. The undeniable male dominance of the philosophical canon is in itself a more complicated topic, one possibly never to be exhausted. Besides, an equally urgent one, such as locating and relocating women in (the history of) philosophy has lately gained momentum. The exuberant female presence during the last century cannot be understated anymore, male philosophers’ reticence notwithstanding. Though mostly described as feminist theorists instead of “philosophers,” several great women philosophers have seen their reputation acknowledged. This increasing occurrence has its considerably various socio-political causes rooted in the prolonged struggle of women. This study will attempt to explore the theoretical bonds of the (re)location of women philosophers in the canon, especially through the textual interaction between Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous. The idea of intertextuality will be thus coined here as intersextuality, in direct reference to Cixous’s terminology.
