Primary Contact Email
jkomoro2@uwo.ca
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Author Bio(s)
Jennifer Komorowski is a member of the Oneida Nation of the Thames and a PhD Candidate at The Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at the University of Western Ontario. She holds an Honours BA in English Literature with a major in Sociology, and an MA in Theory and Criticism. Her SSHRC-funded research focuses on women’s masochism, psychoanalysis, and avant-garde and Indigenous women’s literature. As an Oneida scholar, Jennifer also has an interest in Indigenous literature, and just finished teaching a course on Indigenous Science Fiction at Huron University College.
Department
Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism
Presentation Title
"The Masochian Woman: A Haudenosaunee Philosophical Understanding of Women's Pain"
Keywords
Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, masochism, women’s philosophy, Haudenosaunee, Creation Story, psychoanalysis, philosophy of pain, penance
Abstract
My research takes up the philosophical investigation of masochism beginning at a much-neglected point in the discourse: the woman’s experience. Beginning from the psychoanalytic and continental philosophy traditions, which tend to only consider the desire and drive of men, I continue along the same lines of though which Freud, Deleuze, and Lacan begin and expand into classifying different forms of women’s masochism. One point of departure is Lacan’s example of Saint Teresa of Avila as a model of women’s jouissance, to whom I compare Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. Lacan discusses the statue of Saint Teresa and concludes it cannot be denied she is experiencing an orgasm. Both Saints are described in similar terms, being surrounded by the light of God, and based on Saint Teresa’s own writings and first-hand accounts of Saint Kateri, they both willingly submit themselves to a masochistic type of pain in the name of God.
The current chapter I am researching for my doctoral dissertation focuses on Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the Mohawk saint well known for undergoing extreme forms of penance. Rather than accepting that Saint Kateri was simply a product of Jesuit influence and conversion, this chapter examines the ways in which her practices, such as whipping herself, were also influenced by Haudenosaunee traditions, and will frame the philosophy of women’s pain I am developing within a Haudenosaunee philosophical tradition. This is, in part, grounded in the Haudenosaunee creation story, and I examine the painful physical penance Sky Woman endures in the Mohawk Creation Story (Hewitt).
"The Masochian Woman: A Haudenosaunee Philosophical Understanding of Women's Pain"
My research takes up the philosophical investigation of masochism beginning at a much-neglected point in the discourse: the woman’s experience. Beginning from the psychoanalytic and continental philosophy traditions, which tend to only consider the desire and drive of men, I continue along the same lines of though which Freud, Deleuze, and Lacan begin and expand into classifying different forms of women’s masochism. One point of departure is Lacan’s example of Saint Teresa of Avila as a model of women’s jouissance, to whom I compare Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. Lacan discusses the statue of Saint Teresa and concludes it cannot be denied she is experiencing an orgasm. Both Saints are described in similar terms, being surrounded by the light of God, and based on Saint Teresa’s own writings and first-hand accounts of Saint Kateri, they both willingly submit themselves to a masochistic type of pain in the name of God.
The current chapter I am researching for my doctoral dissertation focuses on Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the Mohawk saint well known for undergoing extreme forms of penance. Rather than accepting that Saint Kateri was simply a product of Jesuit influence and conversion, this chapter examines the ways in which her practices, such as whipping herself, were also influenced by Haudenosaunee traditions, and will frame the philosophy of women’s pain I am developing within a Haudenosaunee philosophical tradition. This is, in part, grounded in the Haudenosaunee creation story, and I examine the painful physical penance Sky Woman endures in the Mohawk Creation Story (Hewitt).