“Althusser’s Feminist Letters”
Eleanor Kaufman’s project examines the extensive archival correspondence between French political philosopher Louis Althusser and two Italian women: Maria Antonietta Macciocchi (1922-2007), a prominent feminist and politician; and Franca Madonia (1926-1981), a translator and intellectual. Although both sets of correspondence have been published, there appear to be additional materials related to both Macciocchi and Madonia in folders in Althusser’s archive at the IMEC (l’Institut Mémoires de l’édition contemporaine) in Caen, France. These letters are invaluable not only for understanding Althusser’s longstanding interest in Italian politics, but also his unexplored engagement with Italian feminism. Because of Althusser’s unfortunate personal history, some would consider it taboo to align his work with feminism, but his intellectual and political affiliations with Italian feminists appear to tell a different story.
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Photo credit: Sur une lettre à Franca
Toni Negri
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Eleanor Kaufman
Eleanor Kaufman is Professor of Comparative Literature, English, and European Languages and Transcultural Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an affiliate of CSW. She specializes in modern French philosophy and its relation to literature, psychoanalysis, religion, and feminist thought and is the author of several books on these topics. She is currently working on a project on French thought in the 1960s called “Structure: A Counterhistory of French Philosophy” that features Althusser prominently.
