On November 16, 1980, the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser strangled his wife in their Parisian apartment, in a period when she was thinking of leaving him. What do we know about Hélène Legotien today? Almost nothing, except that she was murdered by her illustrious spouse. In a sense, Althusser killed her twice, first, by his own hands and second, by dominating the public space to talk about himself.
What then is the political significance of this femicide and the discourse about it which has taken shape in the public space? Delving into the writings of the murderer and his allies in the French intelligentsia, Killer Althusser reasserts the patriarchal violence of the murder, masculine solidarity, and the complacency of a cultural elite. Killer Althusser reasserts the patriarchal violence of the murder, masculine solidarity, and the complacency of a cultural elite.
"Killer Althusser offers a powerful feminist analysis of Hélène Legotien's murder by her husband, Louis Althusser. Dupuis-Déri interrogates the depoliticization of the murder and the exoneration of the killer. Situating Legotien's murder within a continuum of femicide, he challenges narratives that cast the murder as a crime of passion or an episode from which Althusser was 'absent,' instead revealing it for what it is: not extraordinary, but ordinary; not a rupture, but another instance of gendered violence. Althusser emerges not as 'the philosopher' or the tormented genius, but as a woman killer-a fact too often occluded by the reverence of his posterity. Killer Althusser-a must-read for political philosophers and feminists-recentres Hélène Legotien's life and work and exposes male violence against women as a recurring social phenomenon."
"This examination of the 1980 murder of sociologist Hélène Legotien by her partner, philosopher Louis Althusser, lays bare the ways in which such murders are excused and dismissed as the solitary acts of individual madmen rather than understood as systemic acts of misogyny. This murder happened decades ago, but the public discourse about femicide continues to excuse killers of women, while blaming the victims or making them complicit in their own deaths. As Dupuis-Déri notes, the victims disappear, leaving the killers, often vindicated, at the centre of the story. Who, indeed, gets to occupy the public space?"
"This book explores the mundane invisibilization of male violence against women through an examination of the killing of Hélène Legotien by Louis Althusser. Francis Dupuis-Déri highlights Legotien's life and work, challenging the erasure of women who are victimized by male violence. A sharp focus on this one case provides a vibrant example of the operation of masculine solidarity so central to the process of hiding male violence against women and gendered violence in plain sight."
"Killer Althusser is a brilliant book. Dupuis-Déri deftly deploys the case of Hélène Legotien, who was murdered by philosopher Louis Althusser-with little consequence to his fame or stature-to lay bare the persistent and violent effects of male supremacy. This vital book is a burst of justice and love and deserves the widest audience possible."
