Is Women's Studies Dead?

Abstract

This article considers the recurring criticisms of Women's Studies. The desire for the demise of Women's Studies is not new yet recent demands for its end have come from Women's Studies scholars themselves. I review the arguments for and against the termination of the field and, although the arguments against Women's Studies are compelling, I argue for its continuation. This paradoxical conclusion is reached by reconsidering the "for and against" debates through Wendy Brown's use of Jacques Derrida's "spectre" and Walter Benjamin's "angel of history." Thus, despite the seduction of the discourse of conventional argumentation performed through the deconstructive critique of women's studies, the article reposes the question of how to retain Women's Studies – founded on the incoherent category of woman – whilst simultaneously subjecting the field to radical interrogation and re-organization.