DIALOGICAL EXPLORATIONS

Letisa: I am developing an argument on a number of fronts. I am working in relation to ideas of embodiment in relation to knowing as well as ideas about how Western thought has developed from the military culture of ancient Rome. Toyin: Does is this notion of embodiment in relation to cognitive process gain from a specifically female inspirational base? Letisa: I’m still working on that but my argument is for the notion that the act of knowing proceeds along a number of correlative lines, which include the sensory and the mental, that, in fact, the mind could be understood as located all over the body not only in the head since our sensory apparatus operates all over our bodies and are simply routed to their centres in the head. Toyin: That makes sense. How do you intend to develop that into a cognitive procedure? Letisa: That’s the challenge. The central challenge I face here is that the inspirational spring of my ideas derives from the fact that a lot of my ideas emerge from non-rati

Letisa : I am developing an argument on a number of fronts. I am working in relation to ideas of embodiment in relation to knowing as well as ideas about how Western thought has developed from the military culture of ancient Rome. Toyin : Does is this notion of embodiment in relation to cognitive process gain from a specifically female inspirational base? Letisa: I’m still working on that but my argument is for the notion that the act of knowing proceeds along a number of correlative lines, which include the sensory and the mental, that, in fact, the mind could be understood as located all over the body not only in the head since our sensory apparatus operates all over our bodies and are simply routed to their centres in the head. Toyin: That makes sense. How do you intend to develop that into a cognitive procedure? Letisa: That’s the challenge. The central challenge I face here is that the inspirational spring of my ideas derives from the fact that a lot of my ideas emerge from non

Toyin : In the Yoruba traditional thought fom Nigeria which I am studying menstrual fluid is also described as dangerous to the consecrated sacred space used in religious activity. Letisa : So similar to Judeo-Christian constructions. The art of Baldung, the a pintereblematises these deadly prejudices by depicting women in forms that ground the medieval conception of the witch in terms of menstruating women. Toyin : Wait. Please go over that again. Are you stating that images of witches were characterised in terms drawn from female menstruation? Letisa : Yes. Toyin : How? Letisa : Toyin: What strikes me here is the possibilities in cultural interpretation suggested by the development of the demonizing image of the female in Judaeo-Christian thought. We could correlate that theory of yours about consciousness in relation to sexual choice as arising in relation to female biology to the Biblical story of Eve initiating human knowledge of good and evil, of the recognition of difference be

The Snake is our Friend: Sexuality, Choice and the Development of Consciousness Toyin : I am intrigued by your idea about relationships between feminine biology, particularly menstruation and the development if human consciousness. Although it seems to be me that you are overstretching your case there in a determined, perhaps even desperate effort to valorise the biology of you and your sisters in response to all the persecution you have suffered all these years Letisa : Frankly speaking. Look at it. Sexual drive is one of the most fundamental of human drives. The argument I am making relates in a fundamental way to this drive. Toyin : Please go over it again. Letisa : I am arguing that the peculiar structure of female menstruation is fundamental to the manner in which human consciousness has developed. I think that the fact the female menstrual cycle, unlike similar biological cycles amongst animal females enables the possibility of sex at all phases of the biological cycle. Other an