Synopses & Reviews
In Bodies That Matter, Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most material dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in Gender Trouble, Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the matter of bodies, sex, and gender.
Butler argues that power operates to constrain sex from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. Conceived as a regulatory norm, sex is appropriated through a citational set of practices. When identifications undercut the heterosexual imperative, abjected beings are produced who become the occasions for a critical rearticulation of heterosexual hegemony.
Butler offers a clarification of the notion of performativity introduced in Gender Trouble and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; Paris is Burning, Nella Larsen's Passing, and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of performativity and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory.
Developing more gender trouble across a variety of philosophical, psychoanalytic, and fictional works, Bodies That Matter opens new questions in feminism, poststructuralism, and queer theory.
Synopsis
Bodies that Matter is a brilliant and original analysis. Butler's argumentation is rigorous and her insights always new and challenging. Her erudition is outstanding, and she engages with a broad sweep of texts, bringing exciting interpretations to all of her readings. This book will be essential reading in feminism, cultural studies, philosophy and political theory.
Synopsis
The author of "Gender Trouble" further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most material dimensions of sex and sexuality. Butler examines how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the matter of bodies, sex, and gender.