Judith Butler : from norms to politics / Moya Lloyd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lloyd, Moya, 1960-

Series:

Key contemporary thinkers (Cambridge, England)

Key contemporary thinkers

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Butler, Judith, 1956-.

Butler, Judith.

Feminist theory.

Physical Description:

xiii, 201 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity, 2007.

Summary:

With the publication of her highly acclaimed and much-cited book Gender Trouble, Judith Butler became one of the most influential feminist theorists of her generation. Her theory of gender performativity and her writings on corporeality, on the injurious capacity of language, on the vulnerability of human life to violence, and on the impact of mourning on politics have, taken together, comprised a substantial and highly original body of work that has a wide and truly cross-disciplinary appeal. In this lively book, Moya Lloyd provides both a clear exposition and an original critique of Butler's work. She examines Butler's core ideas, traces the development of her thought from her first book to her most recent work, and assesses Butler's engagements with the philosophies of Hegel, Foucault, Derrida, Irigaray and Beauvoir, as well as addressing the nature and impact of Butler's writing within feminist theory. Throughout Lloyd is particularly concerned to examine Butler's political theory, including her critical interventions in such contemporary political controversies as those surrounding gay marriage, hate-speech, human rights, and September 11 and its aftermath.

Contents:

Feminism, identity and difference 4

From homosexual to gay and lesbian to queer 7

The influence of poststructuralism 10

Hegel and desiring subjects 13

2 Rethinking Sex and Gender 25

The trouble with women 25

Feminism and the sex/gender debate 28

Denaturalizing sex and gender 30

Cultural intelligibility - contesting heteronormativity 33

From phenomenology to performativity 36

Performing gender 42

Women in/and feminism 44

3 Towards a Subversive Gender Politics 49

From parody to politics 50

Subversive gender politics 51

Performativity and subversion 54

Free will versus determinism 57

Enter iterability 61

The ambivalence of drag 66

The matter of bodies 68

Politicizing abjection - making bodies matter 74

4 Psychoanalysis and the Gendered Subject 78

Gender Trouble and psychoanalysis 79

Rubin and 'The Traffic in Women' 80

Freud and Oedipus 82

Melancholic gender identifications 83

Melancholia and performativity 85

Lacan and Oedipus 88

Assuming sex 89

Locating resistance 91

Kinship matters 93

Psychic subjectivity 97

Passionate attachment and primary dependency 99

Resisting Butler 102

5 'Talking Back' - Resignification and Politics 107

Words that Wound 108

The force of the performative 110

Opposing sovereign performatives 113

A linguistic account of subjectivity 115

Linguistic subjectivity and responsibility 118

Revisiting agency - politics and resignification 120

Against the state 126

6 What Makes for a Liveable Life? 134

Normative violence and questions of liveability 135

Corporeal vulnerability 138

Mourning and grief 141

Questions of recognition 143

What's wrong with 'desiring the state's desire'? 146

The politics of radical democracy 148

Cultural translation 150.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [182]-196) and index.

ISBN:

0745626114

9780745626116

0745626122

9780745626123

OCLC:

123798126