Michèle Causse

Michèle Causse (July 29, 1936, Martel – July 29, 2010[1]), was a lesbian theorist, translator and author.

Contents

Early life

Causse was born in Martel region of Lot in France.[2][3] She later taught in Tunisia, and then lived for ten years in Rome, where she studied Chinese.[4] After that she moved to Martinique and then to the United States before emigrating to Canada.[5] In her last years, she lived in the southwest of France.[6] Causse chose to end her life on her 74th birthday, in association with Dignitas, an assisted dying group in Switzerland.[7][8]

Theory

Canadian academic Clive Thompson has referred to Causse as a "writer of Radical lesbian texts"[9] In her works, she is critical of heterosexuality, stating that "as long as a woman wishes to please a man, she is inauthentic... She does not have the integrity, the un-corruptibility that comes with not wishing to please.".[10] Causse was also critical of both the Women's Movement and of the concept of a homosexual movement, and stated "I am not a feminist, I am not a homosexual, I am a radical lesbian," She believed that "the women's movement is sustained by lesbians in every country; it is a lesbian movement, profoundly lesbian.[11] She was also critical of the influence of patriarchy on lesbians, claiming that lesbians were phallicized in the 1980s by the male homosexual movement.[12]

Translations

Causse translated between the French, English and Italian languages. Her translations of works included texts by Herman Melville, Gertrude Stein, Ti-Grace Atkinson, Djuna Barnes, Jane Bowles, Willa Cather, Mary Daly, Ignazio Silone and Alice Munro.

Bibliography

Multimedia

Articles

External links

References

  1. ^ http://www.letelegramme.com/ig/generales/france-monde/france/suisse-deces-de-michele-causse-ecrivain-et-militante-lesbienne-30-07-2010-1005494.php Le Telegramme
  2. ^ BIOGRAPHIE de Michèle CAUSSE, 'Revue Violette Leduc
  3. ^ Weil, Lise. Trivia: A Journal of Ideas, issue 20 (1992)
  4. ^ "Michèle Causse". Causse. 2009. http://michele-causse.com/. Retrieved 2009-10-04. 
  5. ^ Michèle Causse
  6. ^ Causse, Michèle. Trivia Magazine, Issue 3, Contributor notes Trivia Magazine
  7. ^ http://www.francesoir.fr/litterature/la-mort-de-michele-causse France Soir
  8. ^ http://michele-causse.com/
  9. ^ Thompson, Clive. Bakhtin and Feminist Projects: Judith Butler's Gender Trouble in Bakhtin: Carnival and Other Subjects, Ed: David Shepherd 1993 Rodopi, ISBN 9051834500, p213
  10. ^ Causse, Michele. La Parole métèque, 1991, Montreal, pp 17–18
  11. ^ Frédéric Martel, Jane Marie Todd, The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France Since 1968, Stanford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0804732744, p81
  12. ^ Frédéric Martel, Jane Marie Todd, The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France Since 1968, Stanford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0804732744, p176