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Audre LordeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Lorde’s use of “erotic” holds a specific philosophical meaning that pointedly contrasts with the colloquial sense; in “Uses of the Erotic,” the author cites the word’s Greek etymological origins in eros, which is also a concept in ancient Greek philosophy. While eros can involve a passion for physical beauty, it transcends carnal appetites and is a fundamentally spiritual desire for truth or knowledge. Lorde’s concept of the erotic is inextricable from its contrast with the pornographic, which she maintains is “diametrically opposed” with the erotic: The pornographic—a male-driven distortion of reality—is a “plasticized sensation” and the denial of true feeling.
“Hegemony” refers to the disproportionate influence—political, social, cultural—of a dominant group. In political philosophy, the idea often appears through the term “hegemonic discourse,” or a dominant group’s narrative about reality. Lorde examines the white heteropatriarchal hegemonic discourse, which is a constructed “reality” wherein heterosexuality, whiteness, and masculinity are desirable and deserve to dominate, while all else is lesser and deserves to be dominated.
When a group’s dominance becomes hegemonic, the marginalized are often so overwhelmed and indoctrinated by the hegemonic discourse that they genuinely believe themselves inferior, even if that belief is unconscious (or “internalized”).
By Audre Lorde
Challenging Authority
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Contemporary Books on Social Justice
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