Pragmatist Feminism as Ecological Ontology: Reflections on Living Across and Through Skins

In my response to the comments of Vincent Colapietro, Charlene Seigfried, and Gail Weiss on Living Across and Through Skins ( Sullivan 2001 ), I explain pragmatist feminism as an ecological ontology that understands bodies and environments as dynamically co‐constitutive. I then discuss the relationship of pragmatist feminism to phenomenology, psychoanalysis, Nietzschean genealogy, and Darwinian evolutionary theory. Some of the specific concepts I examine include the anonymous body, the bodying organism, truth as transactional flourishing, and the preservation of racial and ethnic categories.     

Social competence as a predictor of chronic interpersonal stress

This 1-year prospective study tested Segrin and Abramson's (1994) social skills-stress hypothesis in a community sample of 137 late-adolescent females. The study found that self-reported interpersonal competence at initial evaluation predicted a significant proportion of the variance in chronic interpersonal stress 1 year later, even when prior chronic interpersonal stress and concurrent psychopathology were controlled. Exploratory analyses suggested that deficiencies in the ability to provide emotional support to others may function as a risk factor for the generation of interpersonal stress. These results provide support for theories (e.g., Hammen, 1991b) that emphasize a bidirectional causal relationship between stress and psychological adjustment.     

Religious Life-Styles and Mental Health: A Follow-Up Study

This study is part of a longitudinal research project designed to discover more about the relations between religious involvement and mental health. It represents a 3-year follow-up on a group of religious young adults. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and by means of a psychological test battery. The results are discussed.     

RIGID DESIGNATION, DIRECT REFERENCE, AND MODAL METAPHYSICS

Abstract:  In this paper I argue that questions about the semantics of rigid designation are commonly and illicitly run together with distinct issues, such as questions about the metaphysics of essence and questions about the theoretical legitimacy of the possible-worlds framework. I discuss in depth two case studies of this phenomenon – the first concerns the relation between rigid designation and reference, the second concerns the application of the notion of rigidity to general terms. I end by drawing out some conclusions about the relations between rigid designation, semantic frameworks, reference, and essence.     

Exceeding Hegel and Lacan: Different Fields of Pleasure within Foucault and Irigaray

Anglo-American embodiments of poststructuralist and French feminism often align themselves with the texts of either Michel Foucault or Luce Irigaray. lnterrogating this alleged distance between Foucault and Irigaray, I show how it reinscrihes the phallic field of concepts and categories within feminist discourses. Framing both Foucault and Irigaray as exceeding]acques Lacan's metamorphosis of G.W.F. Hegel's Concept, I suggest that engaging their styles might yield richer tools for articulating the differences within our different lives.