In this article, Andrew Thompson explores the tension between Gert Biesta's concept of educational purpose and education's historical function. For Biesta, the purpose of education consists of three overlapping spheres: qualification, socialization, and subjectification. While scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to Biesta's notion of subjectification, there is not enough consideration of his treatment of socialization and its limits on human freedom. Here, Thompson examines the historical role of socialization as it relates to the cultivation of (...) self-reflecting and self-governing citizens through a process Ian Hunter describes as pastoral pedagogy. Both Biesta and Hunter critique essentialist notions of subjectivity, noting that critical pedagogy in both liberal and Marxian iterations has relied upon a metaphysics informed by Kantian moral definition in which the subject must freely exercise rational autonomy toward self-realization. While Biesta suggests redefining the subject, Hunter dismisses any attempt at redefinition as irrelevant since the school's historical process of moral development is inevitably linked to the antiquated liberal ideal. In Hunter's view, all attempts to escape the school's moral teleology inexorably employ a pedagogy that is based on the moral ideal its critics wish to eliminate. This article illustrates the agonism inherent in Biesta's concept of educational purpose and explores the role of the theorist as the expression of a particular moral self that informs the ideal persona of the teacher. (shrink)

For Martin Heidegger the death that comes singularly for each of us summons us to exist on our own and speak in our own name. But Gilles Delueze and Félix Guattari argue that it is a specific social machinery that summons us to speak in our own name and answer for what we do and are. This summons is a death sentence. They enjoin us to flee this subjectification, this subjection. They do recognize that the release of becomings in (...) all directions can become destructive and self-destructive. There are several weaknesses in their conception. (shrink)

This article will explore the relation of search engines to the freedom they invoke in human subjects. Away from questions about the social impact of search engines and their ethical use, it shall investigate the influence of search engines on ethical subjectifications. The article will criticise the common critique that search engines should only deliver neutral and objective results to their users, where ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ are defined as anti-subjective. On the contrary, it will argue that search engines are designed (...) to deliver subjective results. A possible ethical critique starts therefore where they fail to do so. Due to reasons immanent to the technology, search engines are never subjective enough in their relevance decisions. Their results collide at the same time with what their users expect them to deliver. The article will show that, far from being a disadvantage, this disagreement between the users’ expectations and the search engines results is what triggers an ethical subjectification. (shrink)

The article proposes a semiotic interpretation of the concept of biopolitics. Instead of a politics that takes “life itself ” as its object and, as a result, separates life as an object from subjects, biopolitics is read as subjectification – a governmental rationality that constructs social ways of being and forms of life, that is, social subjectivities. The article articulates this position on the basis of two concepts: Jakob von Uexküll’s umwelt and Michel Foucault’s dispositive. While the former makes (...) it possible to show that the process of life can be conceptualized as subjectification, the latter enables us to argue against an interpretation of biopolitics as a totalized structure of power intervening directly, without semiotic mediation, into “life itself ”. (shrink)

This paper discusses the view that subjectifications are primarily motivated by speakers’ need for self-expression. Approaching the issue from the perspective of animal signalling, we propose that semantic subjectifications are at least equally likely to reflect evaluations and attitudes read into utterances by listeners who attempt to read speakers’ minds. We compare speaker-based and listener-based theories with regard to their predictions, sketch ways in which they can be tested and report findings from first attempts at doing so. First, we report (...) evidence from diachronic corpora. Second, we describe a game-theoretic model that relates listener’s interest in speaker intentions to the average degree of speaker-honesty in a population. Third, we report preliminary results of an experiment in which we tested if listeners were more likely to interpret an utterance as indexing speaker subjectivity when they perceived speakers as more powerful. We conclude that the listener-based hypothesis of subjectification is solid enough to warrant further investigation. (shrink)

The authors of this paper explore Gert Biesta's theorization of three domains of purpose of education: socialization, qualification, and subjectification. The aim is to study the interrelations of the domains and to develop further the theoretical discussion concerning schools' purpose for both individuals and society. Outlining the relationships of the domains of purpose allows one to see how the societal purpose of education is realized in the education of individual students. The domain of socialization sets the stage for the (...) domains of qualification and subjectification, making the balance of the latter two crucial for disadvantaged students as well as schools' societal purpose of both maintaining and reforming soci(et)al structures. Two key ideas are raised: First, in order to better understand the current dynamics of the three domains, the authors suggest separating the logic and content of “qualification.” Second, the authors discuss why it is equally useful to separate the everyday and societal dimension of purpose. The central question is this: Can individual educators find a balance between the three domains if the surrounding society overvalues the logic of qualification? (shrink)

ABSTRACT‘Subjectification', the cornerstone concept of Biesta's philosophy of education, refers to how autonomy should be realized in educational settings and to the fact that explanation is irrelevant to emancipation. In this article a critical realist reading is provided of how Biesta links narrative learning to emancipation and of the shortcomings that spring from this connection. The central thesis of my argument is that truth and values should take center stage in an educational philosophy of emancipation and that these two (...) concepts are left out of Biesta's conception of emancipation. It is suggested that Biesta's philosophy of emancipation has no criteria for distinguishing what is true from what is false and valuable from invaluable. This happens because it cannot adequately address (i) how one passes from ‘is' to ‘ought’ (ii) the ways in which rational thinking could be emancipatory and (iii) the grounds on which emancipatory living is better than non emancipatory living. (shrink)

This article explores Biesta’s recent revisiting of his iconic and at times contested notion of education as subjectification. First, I look at how Biesta presents his notion by attending to his answers to the criticisms it has faced concerning elusiveness, oversimplification, and self-centredness. Then, going beyond the declarative level, I explore a concrete example of education as subjectification from Biesta’s 2022 book, World-Centred Education. Analysing the example of Homer Lane and Jason, I examine the ambivalence between Biesta’s explicit (...) statements on subjectification as a form of spontaneous and noncoercive teaching aimed at cultivating freedom and the more complex picture that emerges from a close reading of the original story. From this analysis, I find important conceptual limitations to education as subjectification: it could conceal part of the institutional context of education and the teacher’s active role, and also reduce freedom to an individualistic concept. I thus conclude by suggesting that the language of subjectification should always be engaged with critically—but never in isolation—and with a stereoscopic optic in mind. (shrink)

A striking trend is emerging in the Canadian and American literary landscape, and memoirs with the following narrative trajectory are now widely read: a stranger abducts a young woman, and holds her captive for years. She endures sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, eventually escapes, and returns to her former life. The sole scholarly discussion about these memoirs frames them as empowering for the authors, but the social and economic factors that inform these texts remain unaddressed. Drawing from Michel Foucault's discussion (...) of the confession, this article complicates and extends this analysis. First, it situates memoirs by Elizabeth Smart, Amanda Berry and Gena DeJesus, Jaycee Dugard, Michelle Knight, and Josefina Rivera as examples of the Foucauldian sexual confession. It then maps the ways memoirs enable the authors to voice their understanding of the social and economic factors that both gave rise to their plight and inform media discussions that blame them for their suffering. I will ultimately argue that memoirs function as a public venue to resist or reject dominant interpretive frames that shape a survivor's experiences, while simultaneously reaffirming the ubiquity of these lines of thinking. (shrink)

Une science est une langue bien faite, et on doit très humblement reconnaître que les termes dont les juristes se servent constamment manquent de netteté ; les mots : droit, action en justice, pouvoir, faculté, liberté sont constamment employés les uns pour les autres. Ce livre présente un grand effort fait pour y porter remède, et nous n'avons pas redouté le reproche de nous attardé à des querelles lexicales : car le danger est trop grand, dans notre science, que les (...) conflits d'intérêts ne deviennent insolubles si on les double de querelles de mots. Paul Roubier. (shrink)

By confronting variable use, the variationist method can reveal patterns of subjectification of grammatical morphemes. Applying this method to the analysis of salir(se) ‘go out’ variation in Mexican Spanish oral data, we conclude that subjectification is manifested structurally in the tendency for middle-marked salirse to co-occur with first-person singular or referents close to the speaker, positive polarity and the past tense. Further comparative dialectal and diachronic data indicate the origins of the se -marked form in physical spatial deviation. (...) Usage of the form then extends to situations that denote deviation from social norms. We thus propose that the locus of subjectification of this counter-expectation marker is an increasingly speaker-based construal of expectation. This semantic change appears to proceed via absorption of contextual meaning in the frequently occurring + de ‘from’ construction. (shrink)

This article offers a pragmatic and relational analysis of the controversial heuristic of cultural resistance and presents some of the problems that affect the production and distribution of the poetic discourses of resistance and emancipation. To that end, it focuses on the incorporation of the historicity and the historic contingency of conflict as key elements of the subjectification constituted by the poem of resistance as “poem for the political”. It also explores the applicability of certain notions common to the (...) contemporary critical tradition, as developed by scholars such as Badiou, Mouffe, Rancière, Bal and Žižek. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je soutiens que l’épuisement subjectif fragilise l’individualité dans l’exécution des actes intentionnels de douter, se soucier, planifier et finalement se protéger. Ces quatre actes intentionnels sont intersubjectifs puisqu’ils sont orientés vers autrui et illustrent une relationnalité imposée. L’épuisement subjectif est relatif aux individus et il affecte la subjectivité parce qu’il empêche l’individu d’entreprendre des projets existentiels individuels. Cette relationnalité imposée et toujours orientée vers autrui affaiblit l’intentionnalité d’une personne et fragilise son individualité. Une description phénoménologique révèle ces (...) actes invisibles et non quantifiables, et comment ils influencent les intentions et les actions d’un sujet. Finalement, je soutiens que l’épuisement subjectif est un phénomène négatif impliquant des risques éthiques, épistémiques, existentiels et émotionnels pour les sujets subalternes. Ainsi, ces quatre actes intentionnels, vécus dans un contexte social inégalitaire, renforcent l'épuisement subjectif et l’imposent aux sujets subalternes. (shrink)

Il est impossible de construire le droit sans {la notion de droit subjectif}, parce qu'elle est la traduction immédiate, sans voile ni détour, de cette réalité élémentaire que, si les hommes sont soumis à une règle sociale, qui est d'ailleurs là pour eux et pour leur bien, ils sont néanmoins des êtres individuels. La société et la règle sociale ne suppriment pas le droit subjectif. Le mouvement est double. D'une part, le droit subjectif au sens moral, qui est antérieur à (...) la société, passe dans la règle sociale garantie: il s'agit des " droits de l'homme ", devenus, grâce à cette mutation, droits subjectifs juridiques. D'autre part, en exécution de sa mission de coordination et d'harmonie, la règle sociale est amenée à établir de toutes pièces des droits subjectifs purement juridiques, qui n'ont de fondement qu'en elle. Mais, de toute façon, le sens de l'intervention de la règle, le résultat auquel elle tend est bien la collation de droits; on n'a pas affaire seulement à des individus investis par cette règle de prérogatives à eux propres et dont ils sont reconnus les maîtres. Du droit objectif sort un droit subjectif. (shrink)

This article discusses the character of hegemonic subjectification as it is seen by Ernesto Laclau. By explaining the concepts of the constitutive features and form of a hegemonically acquired political identity, such as antagonism, undecidability, overdetermination and decision, I define the social fields and dynamics of subjectification. At the same time, I adopt that such subjectification occurs within the boundaries of the particular –universal, i.e., the ideologically assigned view of identity as totality. Besides, in contrast to Laclau, (...) I juxtapose the dialectically conceived form of the particular–universal relation with its poststructuralist Laclau’s version, and I try to prove that—contrary to Laclau—the idea of hegemony enjoys its vitality thanks to Theodor W. Adorno’s concept of negative dialectics. To determine the points of similarity of the two methods of constructing and deconstructing identity and subjectivity, I reject Elmar Flatschart’s incomparability argument. Lastly, I point out the earlier mentioned points of convergence: on Adorno’s part—the concept of proper names and the concept of constellation; on Laclau’s part—the concept of undecidability and decision which keep discourse ontologically and epistemologically open. (shrink)

This book offers an intervention into the process of decolonization through the re-subjectification of the settler subject. The authors draw on what Deleuze and Guattari call minor threads of philosophy, pedagogy, spirituality, and healing practices rooted in neglected lineages of European thought and ceremony. The book proposes a methodology for unontologizing the settler subject, which they term 'desettlering.' Rather than fetishizing indigenous theory and practice as a mode for resubjectifying settlers to facilitate land-based decolonization, it offers a fresh approach (...) by looking towards alternative sets of traditions and identity. These alternatives are used to interrogate minoritarian European philosophies, practices, and beliefs, which the authors propose could be deployed to unontologize the settler within current historical conditions. Asserting that such a process is not volitional but a historical necessity, the book offers a novel and timely investigation into who settlers become if they intend to engage seriously in decolonization. It will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of scholars and researchers in psychological science, social psychology, counseling, philosophy, indigenous studies, and sociology. (shrink)

On the basis of synchronic English language material, Bolinger (Degree Words, Mouton, 1972) has put forward the hypothesis that intensifying meanings or “degree words” often develop from identifying expressions. This paper will empirically test Bolinger's hypothesis by means of in-depth diachronic study of the development of such—one of Bolinger's central examples—and of its Dutch cognate zulk in historical text corpora. To this aim, a detailed cognitive-functional account will first be provided of the (differences between the) identifying and intensifying uses of (...) such and zulk, with attention for diachronic changes affecting the syntax and semantics of these uses, cross-linguistically as well as language-specifically. It will be shown that, as predicted by Bolinger (Degree Words, Mouton, 1972), the proportion of identifying uses decreases over time in favor of the intensifying uses both in English and Dutch. The comparison between such and zulk will, however, show that, despite the close relation between these two languages, the development does not run strictly parallel in English and Dutch, thus endorsing a view that language change does not necessarily follow predetermined pathways. We will argue that minute differences in the syntax of such and zulk steer the diachronic course these elements follow. Finally, Bolinger's shift from identification to intensification will be discussed in terms of its relation to existing (inter)subjectification hypotheses. (shrink)

Can human rights in education enhance students and teachers capacity to reimagine their local community and to rethink the rules and laws that support such a social community? This paper is a political philosophical inquiry into human rights in education, drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Cornelius Castoriadis and Adriana Cavarero. By placing learning at the center of political philosophy through the notion of paideia, we need to ask how such an education can look like. According to Castoriadis, society (...) exists only insofar as it is embodied in its social individuals. Society and its individuals are in a constant process of becoming toward relational autonomy that implies a moral self-limitation. At the core of my philosophical inquiry into moral subjectification is the need to re-think human rights and the pedagogical subject in relational terms that imply self-limitation and political engagement in a wider cosmopolitan community. (shrink)

This article discusses the effects of the 24 year-old rule in Denmark utilising Foucault’s understanding of the ‘subject’ within a governmentality framework. The 24 year-old rule is a good example of how a gendered knowledge about immigration becomes a reality that steers biopolitics, enables practices of normalisation and subjectifies immigrants in various ways. The article foregrounds the subjectivity of immigrant women through a narrative analysis of the constitution of the subject within discourses and in an asymmetrical relationship to power in (...) governance. This analysis reveals the complexity of empirical interactions between the ideational structure of legislative measures and personal meanings expressed by immigrant subjectivities. While I illustrate certain modes of subjectification in relation to the 24 year-old rule, I emphasise the ways subjects employ certain identity strategies by resisting, reworking or contributing to the practices of normalisation. (shrink)

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has prompted many professional fields to replace their human workers with AI systems. In the field of education, however, people generally do recognize the many limitations of AI in comparison to human educators. Much of the discussion on AI limitations, however, centres around the more technical and functional shortcomings of the current technology, which could, at least theoretically, be resolved by further technological advancements. The purpose of this article, however, is to point out (...) the fundamental limitations of AI in education so that such a technology could be used more appropriately and responsibly. Building on the conceptualization of education as (at least partly) subjectification through intersubjectivity, which demands both parties involved to be and be treated as subjects, this article argues that there is at least one aspect in which AI (in its current form) could never replace humans as educators: its lack of subject-ness. In other words, until AI can transcend its current status as mere machine or tool, it could never replace human educators in the latter’s capacity to provide the students with the requisite intersubjective experience of a well-rounded education. (shrink)

Cet article a pour objet d'interroger la place singulière que Leibniz occupe dans l'histoire des conceptions du droit naturel. En effet, d'une part, Leibniz tâche de concilier le droit naturel moderne avec le droit naturel ancien, c'est-àdire de composer Grotius et Hobbes avec Aristote. D'autre part, il entreprend également de concilier l'idée d'un droit naturel rationnel avec la perspective religieuse de la Cité de Dieu d'Augustin. Qu'est-ce que le droit naturel moderne, comme droit subjectif, devient dans une doctrine qui en (...) situe la reprise dans le contexte d'une réhabilitation du droit naturel ancien ou objectif? Mieux, qu'estce que le droit subjectif devient dans une conception du droit naturel qui entend ultimement — par delà la réhabilitation du droit objectif — réactiver la perspective théologique d'une justice divine universelle? Cette double interrogation suffit déjà à indiquer que si, dans ses premières formulations, le droit subjectif fut historiquement lié à une ontologie individualiste, sa reprise dans le cadre de la doctrine leibnizienne du droit naturel a une tout autre signification. This paper intends to question Leibniz's original position in the history of the conceptions of natural right. On the one hand, Leibniz tries to conciliate modern natural right theories with ancient natural right theories, i.e. the ideas of Grotius and Hobbes with those of Aristotle. On the other hand, he also endeavours to conciliate the notion of a rational natural right with the religious perspective of Augustine's City of God. Hence, two questions: what happens to modern natural right, as subjective right, when it is taken up within a doctrine that endeavours to rehabilitate ancient or objective natural right? Or rather, what happens to subjective right within a conception of natural right that eventually aims — beyond the rehabilitation of objective right — at the revival of the theological perspective of a universal divine justice? Though the first formulations of subjective right were historically connected to an individualistic ontology, the fact that this notion bears a quite different meaning within the Leibnizian theory of natural right is sufficiently declared by our twofold question. (shrink)

This article is an effort to explore an incident of conflict that occurred between me—as a teacher in a private tutoring agency—and a fourth-grade boy, Jie, who was under my supervision. During this incident, Jie uttered a physical threat which he directed towards me after I nagged him about his disruptive behaviours. In response, I gave Jie permission to carry out his threat of physical violence against me, but he refrained from doing so. After the incident, we developed a somewhat (...) positive relationship, with Jie showing significant improvement in his conduct. I do not refer to this incident as an example of ‘what to do in a situation like this’, but rather to explore various possible interpretations of the event from a philosophical and educational point of view. In this article, I first discuss two key themes relevant to this incident—namely, freedom and ‘being bad’—and their relationship to one another, before providing a description of the incident itself. I then present the interpretation of the incident that constituted my initial understanding of ‘why my method worked’. I then problematize this interpretation and offer three alternatives, discussing their viability and limitations. The third alternative interpretation, which is largely based on Gert Biesta’s notion of education as subjectification and his interpretation of a similar incident relayed by Homer Lane, is what I settle on in this article. Finally, I draw some implications about education in general from the preceding discussion. (shrink)

This article examines the intersection of autonomy, freedom, and moral responsibility in environmental education, focusing on how educational frameworks can address collective environmental problems. Using Biesta’s educational theory—qualification, socialization, and subjectification—the article explores how environmental education traditionally emphasizes individual agency, which may conflict with the need for collective ethical norms to address environmental challenges. By analyzing negative and positive conceptions of freedom as defined by Berlin, the article critiques these approaches as too individualistic for fostering a responsible and ethical (...) environmental ethos. Drawing on Arendt’s notions of freedom, it proposes a framework for environmental education that balances socialization with the development of autonomous, morally responsible individuals. This approach aims to harmonize individual moral agency with collective responsibility, offering a philosophically grounded vision for cultivating ethical attitudes toward environmental sustainability. (shrink)

This paper posits that the classical idea of jiaohua (education-transformation) kept on being a structuring and central notion of ideological and utopian projects in China across the 20th century up to the present. The emphasis will be successively put on political projects (Sect. 9.1) and on non-official religious, social and economic enterprises (Sect. 9.2). The perspective will therefore rather be a top-down one, mainly focusing on the mindset of the elites. The issue is afterwards discussed from a “grassroots perspective” focusing (...) on the people on which jiaohua is exerted and on their agency (Sect. 9.3). The paper emphasizes that jiaohua cannot only be understood as a logic of authority and domination serving a grand project designed at the top (even though such a dimension clearly exists) but that it can also become a vehicle of subjectification and affirmation of the self. (shrink)

Le quatrième chapitre analyse la tendance spatialisante du corps opérant eu égard à la spatialité subjective. Le corps n’est pas un espace constitué, statique, qui serait donné par avance au sujet comme une configuration inchangeable. Il s’agit, au contraire, d’un déploiement spatial constant à même l’activité sensorimotrice. De par son activité, le corps opérant déploie une spatialité qualitative, une topographie sensorielle. Cette topographie subit à tout moment des transformations qui sont la manière même qu’a notre corps de réagir aux changements (...) de l’environnement et d’y participer activement. Les rapports d’enveloppement et de développement désignent des manières fondamentales qu’a le corps de positionner le sujet dans le monde, le monde par rapport à lui et tous deux dans un équilibre dynamique, cohérent, mais instable. (shrink)

When I am watching a movie, I perceive on the screen a space, which is united and lived, even if it appears as fragmented and separated from the world in which I live. But is the space of the cinematic frame equivalent or commensurable with the one I see through my own eyes? Are they opposed to each other or do they merge together? The most amazing example of the possible convergence of gaze and frame the film realizes is the (...) phenomenon of vision showing itself in the point-of-view shot. How can I perceive what I see on the screen as the vision of another, and the film itself as someone else’s vision? How does this relationship between the visual field of the film and my own, between my body and the screen, challenge the limits between objective and subjective? Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s reflections about cinema and visibility, I try to outline the traits of what I would call a reversible point-of-view shot. (shrink)

The inclusive society we live in promotes familial and extra-familial relationships for disabled people. The purpose of this research was to understand how adults with intellectual disability (ID) live with their families as well as with extra-familial peers and to identify their subjective and emotional experiences. Using an interdisciplinary approach including clinical psychology along with sociology – for the networks study – and philosophy – capabilities perspective, 23 adults ID were encountered for this qualitative research. Each of them were met (...) three times to discuss about relationships with their peers: 1/ during a semi-directive interview; 2/ with the Family Apperception Test (Sotile et al., 1988); 3/ with a sociogram. For this research, each tool was adapted in order to support the adults ID’s participation. Two structures were identified and seem to be impacted by the sibling bonds; the schooling career; the subjectivation of the disability. Analysis highlighted the importance of paying attention to the relationships with peers, since childhood to adulthood, by involving families and institutions. (shrink)

Feminist technoscience and feminist phenomenology have seldom been brought into dialogue with each other, despite them sharing concerns with subjectivity and normativity, and despite both of them moving away from sharp subject-object distinctions. This is unfortunate. This article argues that, while differences between these strands need to be acknowledged, such differences should be put to productive use. The article discusses a case of school bullying, and suggests that bringing these analytic perspectives together enables and sharpens examinations of the role of (...) subjectification and subject positions for subjectivity in the phenomenological sense; affectivity within material-discursive entanglements and constellations of humans and things, and as connecting the body, things and the world in specific ways; and normativity as enacted, lived and embedded in perception. (shrink)

Taking its cue from Michel Foucault’s analyses of the pastoral ‘conduct of conduct’, this paper considers social media as a specific dispositif that derives its mode of operation from the religious techniques of individualization. It argues that today’s preoccupation with digital performances, far from exorcizing the pastoral logic, in fact manifests its secular intensification. By examining social media practices through the lens of the sacramental paradigm of confession, the article shows how the digitalization of the pastoral directive culminates in the (...) production of spectral subjects. These spectral subjects, it contends, function as the conduits of the dominant power, guaranteeing the persistence of capitalism by embodying the imperative to complete economization. (shrink)

This paper will examine the way in which premenstrual symptomatology has been represented and regulated by psychology and psychiatry. It questions the “truths” about women's premenstrual experiences that circulate in scientific discourse, namely the fictions framed as facts that serve to regulate femininity, reproduction, and what it is to be “woman.” Hegemonic truths that define Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) and its nosological predecessor Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) are examined to illustrate how regimes of objectified knowledge and practices of “assemblage” come to (...) regulate individual women through a process of subjectification. Five interconnected “truths” are presented as objects of scrutiny: PMDD is a thing that can be objectively defined and measured; PMDD is a pathology to be eradicated; PMDD is caused and can be treated by one factor; PMDD is a bodily phenomenon; PMDD causes women's problems or symptoms. I examine the way in which these hegemonic truths function in framing the reproductive body as a cause of disorder or distress that leads women to interpret premenstrual experiences within a pathological framework deserving medical or psychological treatment. Finally, I offer an alternative framework drawing on Eastern models of selfhood that provides a more empowering model of women's premenstrual experiences. (shrink)