Vulnerability, Longing, and Stigma in Hélène Cixous’s: The Day I Wasn’t There

Using Hélène Cixous’s three-legged dog, a recurring trope in her book The Day I Wasn’t There, I will consider what Cixous’s philosophy might offer to the articulation of a politics of vulnerability. Can vulnerability serve as a conceptual starting point for (re)imagining the relationship between Self and Other? What is the relationship between vulnerability, longing, and stigma? Of particular interest is Cixous’s articulation of vulnerability as “practice”—as an active and ongoing engagement with porosity, permeability, and danger.