Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21860251
Althusser And Femicide: A Crime Without A Subject
Srđan Damnjanović
; Pravni fakultet za privredu i pravosuđe u Novom Sadu, Novi Sad
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* Dopisni autor.
Sažetak
This text takes as its point of departure the killing of Hélène Rytmann by Louis Althusser in 1980 and develops the thesis that the case should be understood neither as a “philosophical incident,” a psychiatric anomaly, nor a private tragedy, but as a femicide structured by the operation of ideological state apparatuses. Through an analysis of the legal doctrine of insanity and the philosophical conception of “history without a subject,” I propose the following reversal: Althusser becomes a subject of the apparatus whose mechanisms he himself exposed with exceptional theoretical lucidity. The crime was acknowledged, yet responsibility was suspended. The subject emerges only retroactively, as an effect of the apparatus. Particular emphasis is placed on the systematic desubjectivation of Hélène Rytmann, whose political and intellectual role has been suppressed both in prevailing narratives and in the philosophical reception of Althusser’s work. In this context, Althusser came to occupy the position of the subject, whereas the status of “subjectivity without a subject” was assigned to Hélène Rytmann herself. The paper further examines the limits of the contemporary concept of femicide, arguing that its phenomenological use, when deprived of materialist analysis, perpetuates gender-based violence.
Ključne riječi
Louis Althusser; Hélène Rytmann; femicide; ideological state apparatuses; history without a subject
Hrčak ID:
350160
URI
Datum izdavanja:
31.8.2026.
Posjeta: 0 *