ACADEMIA Letters
Gender Mimet(h)ics and Singular Subjectivities versus the
Representational Crisis of Phallocratic Reappropriation
in Postmodern Thought
Esra Başak AYDINALP, Dr.
Post-structural theory has attempted not only to erase the Cartesian subject, but also ques-
tioned the logos of Cogito. It claimed the death of the subject. So, we now tackle with the
phantom of the so-called “subject” that we are not even able to defne. This subject is mostly
connected to the phallocratic phantasm of re-appropriation. How could the new forms of
hegemonies and the doxa be revealed on the imaginary level? What might be the repercus-
sion of such an act in a postmodern society in which the image of the “subject” is consciously
surrounded with various procedures of representation and duplication? How are these signs
and images of postmodern subject refected on the other? The mimicry in question prolifer-
ates in the sense either of a deconstruction or reconstruction of the phallocratic subjectivity
in the quest of its fragmented identity which is each time a representation not the reality. Is
the phallocratic subject already in a world of simulation?
“What is it in us really wants the “truth”?” (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil)
It is possible to reformulate the quotation “Is the truth among us already a representation
or is it the reality?” Is it the reality or the refection or representation of that same reality
which leads us to the truth? So, by even recalling the question, we are already in the feld
of the imaginary. What about the reality and the truth among us? The modern Cogito split
between the subject and its representation in discourse and between the reality and its images is
problematic. The critique of Enlightenment concept of truth and its unitary defnition of truth
Academia Letters, August 2021
Corresponding Author: Esra Başak AYDINALP, esrabasakaydinalp@gmail.com
Citation: Aydinalp, E.B. (2021). Gender Mimet(h)ics and Singular Subjectivities versus the Representational
Crisis of Phallocratic Reappropriation in Postmodern Thought. Academia Letters, Article 3307.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3307.
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©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0