Judith Butler

Call for Papers "Methods in Practice" Workshop, Manchester Workshop in Political Theory, 5-7 September 2012

by Jens Olesen

Potential Lives, Impossible Deaths: Afghanistan, Civilian Casualties and the Politics of Intelligibility

by Thomas Gregory

The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has increased dramatically in recent years as the International... more The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has increased dramatically in recent years as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has tried to put down the Taliban insurgency. Reports of civilian casualties are, however, frequently dismissed as being examples of Taliban propaganda or blamed on the actions of enemy fighters, while the tragic loss of civilians is rarely marked or even acknowledged within the dominant frames of war. At first glance, the fact that civilians are so easily expendable appears to be at odds with the humanitarian intentions underpinning the war. However, I argue that the rhetoric of humanitarianism operates to preclude Afghans from appearing as recognizable human beings, foreclosing the possibility that they possess a life worthy of protection. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler, I will trace the ways in which Afghans have been reduced to the status of absolute victims, denied the very essence of their humanity and therefore a publically grievable death. By effectively constructing them as the living-dead, existing in a state of abeyance, Afghans have been exposed to a deathly logic in which their lives are expendable in the quest to make them liveable once again.

Regulation and Rupture: Mapping Tween and Teenage Girls' Resistance to the Heterosexual Matrix

by Jessica Ringrose

Les Stratégies de la psyché de Foucault à Butler

by Ferhat Taylan

Publié dans la revue Incidence, N° 4-5, "Foucault et la psychanalyse", 2009.

Il s’agit de montrer la continuité entre la critique de la juridico-discursivité et celle de la psychanalyse chez... more Il s’agit de montrer la continuité entre la critique de la juridico-discursivité et celle de la psychanalyse chez Foucault, et de mettre en valeur ce qu’il a voulu y opposer : une logique stratégique. La critique psychanalytique de Foucault entamée par J. Butler, ainsi que la perspective du sujet éthique du dernier Foucault cristallisent cette tension entre loi et stratégie, ce qui permet d’interroger les conditions de possibilité d’une approche foucaldienne au sein de la psychanalyse.

'The Figure of the Child in Queer Neo-Victorian Families'

by Louisa Yates

Kohlke and Gutleben (eds), Neo-Victorian Families (Rodopi, 2011)

HIV Interventions: Beyond the flesh/information distinction (Review essay)

by Mizanur Rahaman

(2012) 21 Science as Culture (forthcoming)

To what extent is the butch-femme aesthetic a critique or a repetition of patriarchal and/or heterosexual orders of relation?

by S A

Submission

An analysis of the model of butch-femme in regard to partiarchal orders of relation, specifically within the field of... more An analysis of the model of butch-femme in regard to partiarchal orders of relation, specifically within the field of theatre and the performing arts.
Also an attempt to discredit the accepted notion of gender binaries that exist in social values and views.

Forbidden Transformation: analysing the ambiguous identity of Joey Hateley by Michael Tatham

by Joey Hateley

MA Theatre Studies (Research Thesis), by Michael Angelo Tatham, University of Reading—2008

I began this project wanting to explore the concept of transgression and how it functioned and related to this... more I began this project wanting to explore the concept of transgression and how it functioned and related to this performer called Joey Hateley whose gender was difficult to decipher. The company name—TransAction—was for me principally about transgenderism and transgression within the space of theatre, and the focus of my research stemmed from a question hypothesized by Judith Butler in her highly influential text Gender Trouble: ‘what kind of [theatrical] performance will enact and reveal the performativity of gender itself in a way that destabilizes the naturalized categories of identity and desire [?]’ (Butler 1999: 177). I investigated the possibilities of theatrical impersonation and role-play in the transgression of gender norms and social boundaries. The connection between certain forms of theatrical performance and queer theories excited me, and I thought that what I had seen at The Drill Hall—Joey Hateley in a show about the mimicry and fluidity of gender behavior and appearance—called into question, or transgressed, hegemonic and heterosexist ideologies pertaining to identity and desire.

The focus changed, slightly, and despite originally setting out to measure and assess the degree of transgression, or the extent to which cultural boundaries had been violated and surpassed in specific instances of theatricality, I became instead more interested in some of the other words and ideas associated with ‘trans’. While transgressive acts in theatrical contexts—or what Jonathon Dollimore understands as ‘transgressive reinscriptions’—disrupt the dimorphic structure of gender, they might also equally reinforce the binary logic of that organizing principle (Dollimore 1991: 322-325). The notion of trans became more about transformation, transition, and transcendence. It felt more appropriate, more accurate even, to claim that Joey was not necessarily transgressing gender, but rather transforming—or expanding—the possibilities of gender as it is lived, constructed, displayed and perceived.

Joey, then, more than a transgressor, is seen in this dissertation as a theatrical transformer who transitions across, through, and in-between a multiplicity of constructed stage identities. The artistic projects by TransAction have opened up—for me and hopefully for many others—new perspectives and new understandings of what it means to live gender(s) and to do gender(s). In watching these exciting transformations—by analyzing this person’s shifting silhouettes—I also re-register my personal changes, consider my multiple others, and am in this sense enlightened, transformed, and yet still transforming. This focus in the work of TransAction, then, to recognize individual alterity, to question differentiation, to document potential social change, and to dream of transcendence is vital if, as Elizabeth Wilson writes, we are to ‘have an idea of how things could be different’ or better still for queer and/or marginalized identities:

In other words, transgression on its own leads eventually to entropy, unless we carry within us some idea of transformation. It is therefore not transgression that should be our watchword, but transformation (Wilson in Kemp & Squires., ed. 1997: 369-370).

Tabula Rasa and Human Nature

by Robbie Duschinsky

draft - forthcoming in Philosophy

It is widely believed that the philosophical concept of ‘tabula rasa’ originates with Locke’s Essay Concerning Human... more It is widely believed that the philosophical concept of ‘tabula rasa’ originates with Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding and refers to a state in which a child is as formless as a blank slate. Given that both these beliefs are entirely false, this article will examine why they have endured from the eighteenth century to the present. Attending to the history of philosophy, psychology, psychiatry and feminist scholarship it will be shown how the image of the tabula rasa has been used to signify an originary state of formlessness, against which discourses on the true nature of the human being can differentiate their position. The tabula rasa has operated less as a substantive position than as a whipping post. However, it will be noted that innovations in psychological theory over the past decade have begun to undermine such narratives by rendering unintelligible the idea of an ‘originary’ state of human nature.

Antigone’s claim. A conversation with Judith Butler

by Pierpaolo Antonello

With Roberto Farneti.Theory and Event, 12.1 (2009)

Performing the Sub-Prime Crisis: Trauma and the Financial Event

by james brassett

The article provides a critical analysis of the performative effects of invocations of trauma and traumatic imagery... more The article provides a critical analysis of the performative effects of invocations of trauma and traumatic imagery during the sub-prime crisis. We develop a pragmatic approach to performativity that foregrounds the ambiguity between the importance of performative utterances, on the one hand, and overlapping performativities that produce subjects capable of ‘‘hearing’’ such utterances, on the other. We argue that a performative effect of the traumatic narrative of the sub-prime crisis was to constitute it as ‘‘an event’’ with traumatic characteristics. Financial subjects came to anticipate the object of financial salvation through intervention to save the banks; and such a view worked to curtail the range of political possibilities that were thinkable. Lines of pragmatic resistance are suggested, which turn the logic of trauma toward broadly progressive ends. In this way, the political dimension of performativity is brought forward: if finance is performative, then this only invites the question of how we might perform it differently.

Thank You For Not Smoking: Defining “Religion” and Marijuana Use in Canadian Courts

by Gabrielle Desmarais

Work in progress. Estimated completing in May 2012.

The proposed essay will investigate the notion of “religion” in law by engaging  in a discourse analysis of the... more The proposed essay will investigate the notion of “religion” in law by engaging  in a discourse analysis of the Federal Court of Canada case Bennett v Canada, which dealt with the claim of marijuana use as “religion”. Given the influence of multiculturalism policies and the emphasis placed on First Nations spiritualities, the Canadian court system is well-equipped to handle peripheral claims to religious identity - yet, their interpretation of “religion” is still heavily reliant on a Christian framework.  Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, this paper will trace the meanings of “religion” employed in Bennett v Canada, noting how assumptions about the nature of religion limit the possibilities of new religious movements. It will utilize the works of Judith Butler and Christopher Eisgruber to interpret the continuing use of “religion” as a legal category and posit a solution in the event of its obsolescence.

"Exclusively Charitable": Wiccan Churches, Tax Exemption and the Performance of "Religion"

by Gabrielle Desmarais

As of yet unpublished, but presented at a conference at Indiana University in February 2012.

This article seeks to queer the category of “religion” in North American law, arguing that the process by which the... more This article seeks to queer the category of “religion” in North American law, arguing that the process by which the concept is delimited remains ambiguous and problematic. It investigates how the category is defined within the legislature of the United States and Canada, with a focus on the delimitations which govern tax exemption privileges, accorded by the state to specific religious organizations. Using the theories of post-structuralist philosopher Judith Butler, it examines the performative and subvertive nature of Wiccan churches, whose attempt to conform to state requirements of “religion” simultaneously reify and call into question the validity of the category.

‘Walsers hybrides Subjekt. Zur dramatischen Szene Die Chinesin/Der Chinese’

by Valerie Heffernan

in: Robert Walsers 'Ferne Nähe': Neue Beiträge zur Forschung, ed. by Wolfram Groddeck, Reto Sorg, Peter Utz and Karl Wagner, (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2007), pp.237–242.

Deregulacija temelja

by Adriana Zaharijević

Philosophy & Philosophising: Reconfiguring the Material of Philosophy and Developing (feminine) Subjectivity with Irigaray and Malabou

by Nicola Rubczak

Childhood Innocence: Essence, Education and Performativity

by Robbie Duschinsky

Draft Only; forthcoming in Textual Practice

Building from an analysis of Wedekind and Foucault, it will be argued that modern childhood has been constructed as... more Building from an analysis of Wedekind and Foucault, it will be argued that modern childhood has been constructed as both natural and in need of cultivation and regulation. Through practices which seem to protect and nurture innocence, a particular account of the ‘natural purity’ of children can be materially and discursively produced without this seeming to be an artificial imposition. Moreover, I shall propose that imputing innocence to children allows a covert ontology to be constructed for particular groups of adults or society more generally; claims about the nature of the particular groups of adults, or society generally, can be smuggled into such accounts via claims about the child they may once have been. I shall depict innocence discourses as complex: capable of beneficial effects but also complicit in the production, stabilisation and occlusion of potentially troubling effects on relations of power, emotion and meaning in modern societies.

The New Sexual Visibility

by Robbie Duschinsky

Draft only; invited by Feminist Theory

A diversifying range of markers of sexuality and desire are today ‘proposed, suggested, imposed’ for subjects,... more A diversifying range of markers of sexuality and desire are today ‘proposed, suggested, imposed’ for subjects, producing a condition I call ‘the new sexual visibility’. These signifiers are capable of simultaneously heteronormative and counter-heteronormative meanings and mobilisation, in response to the directly conflicting demands on young women in contemporary society. In policy and media discourses on ‘sexualisation’, these cultural changes are articulated with a moral and medical problematisation of the credibility of young women as adequate commercial and sexual choice-makers. Drawing upon Judith Butler’s Antigone’s Claim (2000) it will be argued that, in this way, the figure of ‘the girl’ is haunted by the ‘trouble’ young women suffer, and are held responsible for, in negotiating what is thereby situated as acceptable forms of subjectivity. A Butlerian alternative to moral panic theory, for use in considering cases like ‘sexualisation’ where the object of concern cannot be meaningfully quantified, will be set out in the conclusion to the article.

Theorising Trans: (Trans)forming Praxis

by Nyah Harwood

„Judith Butler, Radical Democracy and Micro-Politics

by Birgit Schippers

published in The Politics of Radical Democracy, ed. by A. Little and M. Lloyd, Edinburgh University Press, 2009, pp. 343-354 (ISBN 07486 16780)