WHILE THE HYDRA LIVES, THE MEDUSA CAN'T LAUGH: AN EXPLORATION OF THE ABSENT FEMININE IN LE RAVISSEMENT DE LOL V. STEIN

From Aristotle to Freud and Lacan, Western thought has often defined women through the prism of absence and lack. Aristotle described women as governed by “cold and moist” humors, deprived of heat and therefore passive, incomplete beings. This notion of deficiency persisted across centuries, resurfacing in psychoanalytic theories that cast femininity as a “fundamental lack” — the absence of the phallus. In Western philosophy, absence is typically feared; it must be filled, explained, or given meaning. But what if, instead of resisting absence, we embraced it? What if the very ... continue reading->

Keywords: Absence; Deficiency; Silence; Emptiness; Potentiality