A "suitably dead" woman: Grieving Andrea Dworkin

Abstract

This article investigates the discursive register through which lives become grievable by focusing on a case study of the discourses surrounding the death of radical feminist, Andrea Dworkin. I argue that Dworkin becomes embroiled in an interlocking nexus of illicit subject positions that set the terms of her grievability and obstruct recognition of her as a rational being by framing her (1) as the quintessential emotional and irrational woman who is not worthy of the respect typically offered to the dead and (2) in relation to her wild, unruly, and excessive body, which is conflated with her feral work.