This article considers two themes in Butler's work: the dialectic of subject formation - that the autonomous subject is instituted through constraint - and the relation between the psyche and the social. With regard to the former, the introduction of a notion of historicity into a conception of the symbolic yields a concept of agency. Nonetheless, this concept of agency still lacks social specificity. By reconfiguring the psyche as an effect of the interiorization of social norms, Butler introduces the destabilizing (...) force of the category of the unconscious into constructivist accounts of identity. This sociocentric reworking of the psyche-social relations provides a nuanced account of gender identity, but it results in a negative model of action as the displacement of constraining social norms. It is also important for a conception of agency to include an account of the creative dimensions of action where actors actively appropriate conflicting socio-cultural values to institute new collective forms of identity. (shrink)

This paper responds to the sense of “crisis” or “trouble” that dominates contemporary feminist debate about the categories of sex and gender. It argues that this perception of crisis has emerged from a fundamental confusion of theoretical and political issues concerning the implications of the sex/gender debate for political representation and agency. It explores the sense in which this confusion is manifest in a debate between Seyla Benhabib and Judith Butler.

This article takes up the work of Judith Butler in order to present a vision of ethics that avoids two common yet problematic positions: on the one hand, the skeptical position that ethical norms are so constitutive of who we are that they are ultimately impossible to assess and, on the other hand, the notion that we are justified in our commitment to any ethical norm that appears foundational to our identity. With particular attention to the trajectory of Butler’s project (...) from The Psychic Life of Power to Giving an Account of Oneself, the article discusses the shortcomings of these two positions and the virtues of the alternative account that Butler develops during this period. (shrink)

Judith Butler's Kritik der ethischen Gewalt represents a significant refinement of her position on the relationship between the construction of the subject and her social subjection. While Butler's earlier texts reflect a somewhat restricted notion of agency, her Adorno Lectures formulate a notion of agency that extends beyond mere resistance. This essay traces the development of Butler's account of agency and evaluates it in light of feminist projects of social transformation.

Examining the nature of Václav Havel's 'postmodernism,' we suggest that his use of this ambiguous label can be best understood if interpreted outside the conventional binary framework of modern/postmodern philosophy, which does not sufficiently answer to the lingering crisis of foundational certainty in political theory. In our view, the Czech playwright-turned-politician offers not merely a less confining sense of what it means to be 'postmodern,' but his commitment to moral political action also lends itself to overcoming some of the limitations (...) of contemporary postmodern theorizing by reentering the depreciated terrain of ontology. Specifically, we argue that an assessment of Havel's brand of postmodernism yields a rich interpretive harvest when read through ontological lenses. Indeed, Havel's theoretical posture serves as an instructive example of what political theorist Stephen K. White has called a 'felicitous weak ontology.'. (shrink)

Tragedy and Citizenship provides a wide-ranging exploration of attitudes toward tragedy and their implications for politics. Derek W. M. Barker reads the history of political thought as a contest between the tragic view of politics that accepts conflict and uncertainty, and an optimistic perspective that sees conflict as self-dissolving. Drawing on Aristotle's political thought, alongside a novel reading of the Antigone that centers on Haemon, its most neglected character, Barker provides contemporary democratic theory with a theory of tragedy. He sees (...) Hegel's philosophy of reconciliation as a critical turning point that results in the elimination of citizenship. By linking Hegel's failure to address the tragic dimensions of politics to Richard Rorty, John Rawls, and Judith Butler, Barkeroffers a major reassessment of contemporary political theory and a fresh perspective on the most urgent challenges facing democratic politics. Derek W. M. Barker is a program officer at the Kettering Foundation. (shrink)

The question of Judith Butler's ‘politics’ and their normative justification has been raised by critics and supporters alike for some time. The number of recent texts dedicated to this topic suggests that it remains an unresolved and still pressing question. I argue that in order to identify and evaluate the political implications of Butler's work, we must first recognize the relationship and distinction between four vectors of her thinking: her diagnosis of the human condition, her expression of specific normative aspirations, (...) her defense of a distinct ethical comportment and finally her theory of political engagement. I conclude that Butler implicitly counsels the cultivation of certain ethical dispositions, including generosity, humility, patience and restraint, as part of a practice of preparing to engage in a kind of politics that breaks radically with the mastery- and sovereignty-seeking variety all too familiar to us in contemporary times. (shrink)

The analysis in this article provides an alternative interpretation of trafficked women’s self-presentation before the courts. I use complete observations of German judges deposing women in camera who are witnesses in criminal proceedings against their traffickers. My objective is to develop and inform a different account of the women’s self-presentation by prioritising the narrative accounts of their ‘lived’ experiences of trafficking. Invoking Judith Butler’s analysis of the complex transactions between subjectification and subversive agency and emerging debates in the health arena (...) in psychosocial theory on resilience, I ask: How is trafficked women’s self-presentation in criminal proceedings an expression of their agency and resilience? (shrink)

This article considers the grounds on which distinctions are drawn between the identities of gender, sexuality, `race' and class and explores the implications of these distinctions in relation to different kinds of identity politics and, in particular, to the politics implied by Judith Butler's theory of performativity. I argue that what is often taken to be the key site of much queer theory and activism - that is, the reappropriation of signifiers of difference - is problematic in the light of (...) a close analysis of subjectivities which are informed by `race', gender and class. More specifically, it may be that struggles which are frequently linked to issues of visibility are problematic in the context of subjectivities - class subjectivities - that are both enabled and constrained by a particular, and a particularly uneasy, relation to recognition and representation. (shrink)

Nobody claims to be a proponent of white feminism, but according to the critique presented in this article, many in fact are. I argue that feminism that does not take multiple axes of oppression into account is bad in three ways: it strategically undermines solidarity between women; it risks inconsistency by advocating justice and equality for some women but not all; and it impedes the ultimate function of feminism function by employing epistemological “master’s tools” that stand in antithesis to feminist (...) emancipatory work. In investigating ethnocentrism in feminism, I develop the idea of latent ethnocentrism, which occupies the space between meaning that is generated from reference to the self and overt racism. I identify an epistemological prong in the ethnocentrism charge against feminism, where I draw on bell hooks’ interlocking axes-model of oppression to answer why the ethnocentrism problem is important for feminism and what its underlying epistemological causes are. I draw on Uma Narayan’s destabilization of cultural dualisms to argue that they do not serve emancipatory agendas. There is a mutually constitutive relation between language that informs our understanding, on the one hand, and the political agendas that produce this language to sustain the male and the western norm as center, on the other hand. I call this circular and reciprocally reinforcing mechanism the episteme-politic. I conclude that the ethnocentrism problem is not merely an issue of strategy or feminist consistency but of shooting oneself in the foot by uncritically accepting patriarchal concepts for feminist politics. (shrink)

This article shows how feminism welcomed and was influenced by the pragmatism of John Dewey. While in real terms his impact on European feminism has been minimal, this was not the case in contemporary America. In this article we study both how Dewey’s ideas were received amongst American feminists, as well as certain aspects of his thinking that could be enormously useful in present-day debates between critical and postmodern feminists. We compare the Deweyan and feminist arguments against the traditional dualisms (...) that acted as philosophical support for social inequality, paying particular attention to mind–body dualism, and the consequent undervaluation of physical and emotional wellbeing. We also show that John Dewey’s proposals were, in fact, more radical than those of the feminists of the day. Indeed, democracy has to be understood as a way of life that affects every dimension of experience, and is crucial to the personal and social growth that enables the unjust social inequalities between men and women to be overcome. (shrink)

This article offers a reconstruction of Theodor Adorno's work as it concerns sex/gender and feminist praxis. Although the prevailing interpretation of Adorno's work conceptualizes its relationship to women as one of either exclusion or essentialism, I argue that both the reading of Sade's Juliette in Dialectic of Enlightenment, as well as a number of Adorno's aphorisms in Minima Moralia, present complex feminist claims and commitments. Max Horkheimer and Adorno position Juliette as a subject of the Enlightenment, forestalling the possibility that (...) women qua women are potentially utopian figures. I utilize Adorno's work in Minima Moralia to show that he—far from excluding or essentializing women—was interested in metaphorically capturing the subjective conditions developed by a system of binary sex/gender within a heteropatriarchal society. Indeed, one can find an iteration of queer theoretical commitments in Minima Moralia. As a result, I argue that he displays a number of straightforwardly feminist commitments: that a liberated society requires the disambiguation of sex from gender, affirming the nonnaturalness of our social sex/gender regime, and claiming that all subjects as gendered subjects are damaged by living within a heteropatriarchal society. Lastly, I provide preliminary evidence of Adorno's critique of liberal feminist praxis. (shrink)

Si en Gender Trouble Butler presentaba una propuesta de la teoría de la performatividad de los actos de habla aplicada a la construcción del género, en su último libro, Notes towards a Performative Theory of Assembly, articula una teoría de la performatividad aplicada a la acción colectiva de minorías o poblaciones que son estimadas como “desechables”. El interés de la propuesta que presentamos es analizar cómo la teoría de la performatividad de género se ha ido ampliando a las formas de (...) acción democrática; pasando así de ser una explicación centrada en las posibilidades identitarias de género a explicar las posibilidades para una vida vivible. Es lo que aquí llamamos la ampliación de la performatividad, del caso especial de género al caso general de una vida vivible. (shrink)

Hipparchia's use of exile as an ethical and rhetorical space from which to critique convention is the point of departure for an examination of the ethics of using exile as a rhetorically effective position for feminist theorizing. To address the ethical problems involved in using exile as a rhetorical space, I argue for a reading of exile as both a rhetorical and embodied space that can maintain an ethical anchor for feminist rhetorical and political practice.

In this article, I draw on theories of gender performativity and on postcolonial African feminisms to develop an account of femininities in the rural context of northern Ghana. In doing this, I reflect on Judith Butler’s theory of gender as performative, that is, as constituted by the reiterative power of discourse to create and also constrain that which it names. Through an analysis of the findings from my participant observation fieldwork amongst the Dagaaba community in Serekpere in north-western Ghana, I (...) demonstrate that there exists a profound resonance between the theories of performativity of gender and Dagaaba constructions of gender identities and power relations. The key assumptions of performativity theories are instructive in helping to make sense of the subtleties of gendered performance and power relations in this Dagaaba community. This article diverges from Butlerian theories of gender performativity by focusing on heteronormative marriage practices and the role they play in forming gendered identities. In this regard, it participates in acts of cultural translation – between European and North American settings and a West African milieu. Based on my analysis of the performative practices that constitute gender relations amongst the Dagaaba, I argue that femininity can be understood as forming a continuum, namely: ‘ideal woman’, ‘woman’ and ‘beyond woman’. (shrink)

En este artículo se defiende que ni la perspectiva universalista ni la perspectiva particularista pueden ignorarse mutuamente. Ambos enfoques son necesarios para una mejor comprensión de la complejidad de las afirmaciones del multiculturalismo actual y ambos pueden contribuir a una solución. De este modo, se analizan en primer lugar varias conceptualizaciones de «identidad». A continuación se muestra cómo las afirmaciones sobre justicia distributiva se convierten en afirmaciones de identidad. En tercer lugar, se discuten algunas consecuencias de comprender la «identidad» no (...) como una construcción política sino como una característica ontológica. Finalmente, se considera cómo las mujeres han sido históricamente «mediadoras», y los riesgos que esto implica. En las conclusiones se muestra la importancia tanto de las concepciones universales como de la atención debida a los movimientos identitarios y sus reivindicaciones. (shrink)

The systematic philosophical foundation for Jean-François Lyotard's postmodern and post-Marxist politics is described. The central principle of the right to create different "phrases" is uncovered and examined. The political consequences of this philosophical system are explored, leading to the conclusion that Lyotard's commitment to difference leads to political indifference. The philosophical roots of this indifference are detailed in Lyotard's Cartesian starting point and his analysis of Holocaust revisionism. This analysis reveals an idealist basis to Lyotard's philosophy of difference. Lyotard's concept (...) of difference is compared to that of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger was not only one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century but also a supporter of and a contributor to one of the most discriminatory ideologies of the recent past. Thus, "the Heidegger's case" gives us philosophers an opportunity to work on discrimination from a philosophical perspective. My aim in this essay is to question the relationship between freedom and discrimination via Heidegger's philosophy. I will show that what bridges the gap between Heidegger's philosophy and a discriminatory (...) ideology such as the National Socialist ideology is Heidegger's conceptualization of freedom with the aid of a monolithic understanding of history--one that refuses to acknowledge the plurality and heterogeneity in the socio-historical existence of human beings. Accordingly, I will claim that the Heideggerian freedom depends on the social, if not literal, murder of the marginalized segments of a given society. However, I will refuse to conclude that Heidegger's philosophy is a Nazi philosophy and that it should never be appropriated as long as we want to purify our thoughts from discriminatory ideas. Rather, I will re-appropriate Heidegger, against Heidegger, to read and interpret Michel Foucault's and Judith Butler's philosophies. My aim here is to construct a social ontology that may justify anti-discriminatory policies. More specifically, through my Heideggerian readings of Foucault and Butler, I will argue that one's freedom is dependent on the cultural resuscitation of socially, and sometimes literally, murdered racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, and sectarian/confessional minorities. (shrink)

: Judith Butler's Kritik der ethischen Gewalt represents a significant refinement of her position on the relationship between the construction of the subject and her social subjection. While Butler's earlier texts reflect a somewhat restricted notion of agency, her Adorno Lectures formulate a notion of agency that extends beyond mere resistance. This essay traces the development of Butler's account of agency and evaluates it in light of feminist projects of social transformation.

This paper locates the work and critical reception of the experimental poet Lyn Hejinian within the emerging debates of ‘third-wave’ feminist critique. It centrally argues that Hejinian's writing at once illuminates and undermines the apparent tensions between a feminist and an anti-foundationalist critical position. It specifically focuses on Hejinian's use of autobiography, as at once gesturing to the limitations of the theoretically naive self-knowing subject, steeped in the discredited assumptions of modernity, and the continuing cultural validity of and desire for (...) narrative, identification, self-expression and referentiality. The paper argues that Hejinian's writing makes sense of this equivocation, not through its use of feminized tropes assumed to subvert the linear assumptions of the genre and render the reader ‘active’, but through an attention to the ironical complexities of her own cultural positioning. Hejinian's writing demonstrates how the representation of the postmodern feminist subject involves an attention to authoriality, to the possibilities of textual experimentation and to the cultural sites that legitimize the production of meaning for these things. Hejinian demonstrates not simply that feminism can reconcile a need for agency with a critique of agency, and that such an act needs to consider its collective implications, but that these kinds of claims actually require an engagement with the varied contexts that continue to make feminist's attention to literature meaningful. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende abordar a importância histórica e filosófica de se debater gênero, em especial na situação feminina. Para isso, percorrer-se-á, nesta ordem, a fim de marcar aproximações e afastamentos no âmbito epistêmico e metodológico de suas obras, o proposto por Scott, Beauvoir, Butler, Benhabib e Fraser. Concluindo que a teoria desta última pode ser utilizada como um caminho entre os universalismos, operando nas resoluções do cotidiano, e as análises pós-modernas, mediando o debate sobre redistribuição e reconhecimento. Um recorte da (...) situação brasileira também é levado em conta, a fim de se contextualizar geo-culturalmente a problemática em questão, mesmo que de modo inicial. (shrink)

The abuse of disabled women is an issue that has not historically been given a great deal of attention. More recently, efforts to raise awareness of this particular set of needs have been ongoing but largely limited to the specialised spheres of domestic violence and disability activism. This paper explores the types of discourse being put forward in these efforts, using Fraser's categorisation of needs talk within the process of politicisation. It finds evidence of oppositional, expert and reprivatisation discourses and (...) suggests that these have emerged in a way that reflects the distinctive histories of disabled people as well as feminist explanations of domestic violence and abuse. (shrink)