Book Review Feminist Interpretations of Søren

It is surprising that recent feminist philosophers have paid so little attention to Søren Kierkegaard's sustained engagement with the "otherness " of woman--especially since Simone de Beauvoir deployed Kierkegaard's "In Vino Veritas " dialogue from his Stages on Life's Way (Kierkegaard 1988) to ground her account of woman's alterity. Feminist Interpretations of Søren Kierkegaard (Léon and Walsh 1997) is the first anthology in English that seeks to fill this significant gap. As such, it is to be offered a hearty welcome. The anthology comprises fourteen essays--eight reprints--with an introduction. In the latter, Céline Léon and Sylvia Walsh explain that the volume has been organized dialectically. The opening essays (Wanda Warren Berry, Birgit Bertung, Julia Watkin, Robert Perkins) show that Kierkegaard was not a common misogynist. The second set of essays (two by Léon and one by Silviane Agacinski) emphasizes that Kierkegaard's writings are nevertheless dangerous for feminism in that Kierkegaard continues to exclude women from culture. The third group (Mark Lloyd Taylor, Walsh, Leslie A. Howe) synthesizes critique with commendation, emphasizing tensions within the oeuvre. Th