Diane Elam's central problem within this text, is what happens to feminist politics once apparently stable categories, such as woman, identity, experience, sex, gender, even political agency itself, are treated as constructed, contingent and open to dispute.

Moving through questions of sexual difference, identity politics, interdisciplinarity, institutions, ethics and solidarity, Elam argues against the idea that abandoning fixed foundations means abandoning politics. Instead, she develops the possibility of a feminism able to act without pretending its subjects or principles are finally settled: what she calls a “groundless solidarity.” The result is both an introduction to deconstructive feminist thought and a more interesting argument about what political action looks like when certainty is unavailable. First published in 1994, it sits squarely in the period when feminism’s encounters with Derrida, poststructuralism and the politics of difference were being fought out at full volume.

Edition / condition: Routledge, London, 1994. First edition. Paperback. 154 pages. ISBN 0-415-09166-7. Light rubbing and handling wear to covers, with minor edge and corner wear; internally clean and sound. Very good condition.