1001Philosophers

Hortense Spillers Quotes on Politics

Hortense J. This page collects quotes attributed to Hortense Spillers on the topic of politics, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Hortense Spillers:

    “Before the body is a political subject, the body is the captive flesh of an American grammar.”

  • Attributed to Hortense Spillers:

    “The Middle Passage was the disciplining of bodies into a category of property.”

  • Attributed to Hortense Spillers:

    “Race is not a noun in the American sentence; it is a tense and a voice.”

  • Attributed to Hortense Spillers:

    “The Black woman is the figure on which the gendered grammar of the West breaks down.”

  • Attributed to Hortense Spillers:

    “We are still in search of the words for what slavery did to the language.”