This article aims to read feminist new materialisms (Barad), together with ‘postulated’ linguistic or cultural primacy of Queer Theory (Butler), to show how both are engaged in similar critical-ethical endeavours. The central argument is that the criticism of Barad and new materialisms misses Butler’s materialistic insights due to a narrow interpretation of Butler's alleged social-constructivist position. There is, therefore, a specific focus on where they both make similar ethical appeals. Moreover, the article relies on Adorno's negative dialectic to highlight an (...) interpretation of Barad and Butler as being part of the same dialectical movement, in which materialism and idealism fluctuate in their mutual criticisms, thus continuing the procession towards 'new knowledge' and emancipation, or freedom, through their motions back and forth. (shrink)

The main aim of this dissertation is to examine whether or not Judith Butler’s feminist philosophy (Queer theory) can be interpreted as what Theodor W. Adorno called a dialectical or immanent critique of dialectics. The rationale behind this examination can be found in two essays published by Carrie Hull (1997) and Marcel Stoetzler (2005). In these essays, both authors suggest that Butler’s argument (Gender Trouble 1999[1990]) would benefit significantly from being juxtaposed with Adorno’s reconceptualisation of dialectics as ‘negative dialectics’ (Negative (...) Dialectics 1990[1966]). However, while Hull and Stoetzler provide convincing arguments, their claims are, at best, superficial. Thus, this dissertation addresses this particular lack in state-of-the-art by thoroughly examining Hull’s and Stoetzler’s suggested reading of Butler with Adorno (and vice versa). ; The first chapter deals exclusively with Adorno’s theoretical development and negative dialectics. It focuses on how Adorno’s general philosophical outlook can be interpreted as a critical enterprise aimed at correcting the ‘wrongness of the present’, to show how and where society, politics, or philosophy has failed to live up to what they claim to have achieved e.g. how the notion of a shared national identity fails to consider the diverseness of the individuals it encompasses. Adorno’s central issue is thus with ‘Identity Thinking’ (1990), a mode of thinking aimed at providing an account of everything from a unified perspective. ; The second chapter, as preparation for the third (on Butler), is divided into two shorter examinations of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, two figures whose works have greatly inspired Butler. Foucault and Adorno converge around their shared criticism of social structures, which permits nothing but themselves. Derrida and Adorno converge in their shared mode of criticism that seeks to, in Derrida’s words, deconstruct a text or a theory from within. Hence, by juxtaposing Foucault’s and Derrida’s critical philosophies with Adorno’s negative dialectics, the notion that Butler can be juxtaposed with Adorno is secured by drawing a straight line from Butler’s theoretical inspirations. ; The third chapter engages in a close reading of Butler and subsequently (relying heavily on Hull and Stoetzler) in a critical reinterpretation that reads Butler not as an anti-dialectical thinker but instead as an ambiguous dialectical thinker. Butler interpreted this paves the way for reading Butler’s feminism firmly within Adorno’s negative dialectics. Adding Adorno’s account of materiality to Butler, while still keeping Butler’s criticism of feminism’s ‘totalizing gestures’ (1999) intact, makes it more apparent how Butler’s argument contains a materialist account and gives materiality a more prominent place in Butler’s argument. The lack of materiality in Butler has been criticised by other feminists (New Materialism) since the publication of Gender Trouble. Thus, by adding Adorno to Butler, this criticism is met head-on. ; The conclusion goes beyond the initial scope of the dissertation by showing how Butler, with Adorno, can be juxtaposed with those critics who want to turn contemporary feminism away from the notion that ‘everything is culture/language’ (Butler) and instead focus on materiality and matter (New Materialism; Karen Barad). By reading Butler not against but with New Materialism, the dichotomy between culture and nature turns into a productive difference rather than something that is an unsurmountable contradiction. (shrink)