Gertrude Postl is Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at Suffolk County Community College in Selden, New York. She received her doctorate at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her research areas include Feminist Philosophy and Gender Theory with a focus on the intersection between body, language, and representation (Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva), and issues of reading/writing, author, and text (Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida). She is currently Executive Committee Member of the Association for Philosophy and Literature (www.philosophyliterature.com)
…our seas are what we make of them, full of fish or not, opaque or transparent, red or black, high or smooth, narrow or bankless; and we are ourselves sea, sand, coral, seaweed, beaches, tides, swimmer, children, waves… More or less wavily sea, earth, sky – what matter would rebuff us? We know how to speak them all.
Aber es ist so, daß unsere Meere sind was wir aus ihnen machen, sie sind fischreich oder nicht, trüb oder durchsichtig, rot oder schwarz, bewegt oder spiegelglatt, schmal oder uferlos, und wir sind selber Meer, Sand, Korallen, Algen, Strände, Gezeiten, Schwimmerinnen, Kinder, Wellen. Mehr oder weniger ungefähr Meer, Erde, Himmel, welche Materie soll uns denn abstoßen? Wir wissen sie alle zu sprechen.
— Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa (Das Lachen der Medusa)