In this interview, Hélène Cixous explores her childhood as a Jew in French-occupied Algiers and the impact it had on her work in the area of feminist theory and on her personal politics. Cixous turns to the classics—Freud’s Dora and Shakespeare’s Cordelia—to illustrate the legacy of phallocentricism in western culture. Its major effect—the silencing of women—is explored, as Cixous advocates the importance of writing for women as a means of creating an alternate body—une écriture feminine—through which they can speak and express themselves. (40 minutes)