Hicks,+Rachael


 * Judith Butler **

** ﻿ ** ===** “Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to, or does, but it may also be that despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel. And so when we speak about my sexuality or my gender, as we do (and as we must), we mean something complicated by it. Neither of these is precisely a possession, but both are to be understood as modes of being dispossessed, ways of being for another, or, indeed, by virtue of another.” (//Undoing Gender//) **===

** Introduction **

**Judith Butler is an American philosopher. The fields, to which she has contributed immensely, include feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. The areas of research that she concentrates in are literary theory, modern philosophical fiction, feminist and sexuality studies, 19th-20th century European literature and philosophy, and Kafka.**

** Biography **


 * Judith Butler was born on February 21, 1956 in Cleveland, Ohio to a family of Hungarian and Russian ancestry. In 1984, she received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University. She is currently the Maxine Elliott professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California at Berkeley. She has also held teaching positions at Wesleyan University, George Washington University, and Johns Hopkins University.**

** Overview **

** Performativity **

**Butler theorizes gender, sex, and sexuality as being performative. She argues that gender is not an identity. Instead it is “a discourse that helps to effect the distinction between nature and culture on which it purports to rest” (Disch 27: 545-559). Also within this same article, discussing Butler and the politics of the performative, it is argued that, using the term matrix, “this matrix marks the mutual exclusion of sex and desire that masculine and feminine genders presuppose”. Gender is assumed to be performative in the sense that it is not the result of nature but of the characteristics and expectations that are determined by cultures. According to Butler:**


 * There exists no natural necessity to see bodies as ordered into distinct sexes. **
 * Whatever sense of givenness or facticity we may possess about our bodies is a **
 * matter of historically sedimented practices and performances. Our pleasures, **
 * desires and pains do not emanate from a prediscursive body. Rather, it is a matter **
 * of historical contingency that we see the body as we do.” (Digeser 47: 655-673) **

** Politics/Censorship **

**Butler questions censorship arguing that it is often difficult to evaluate. She argues that hate speech is the outcome of specific language being deemed hate speech by authorities. In her work, //Excitable Speech//, “Butler charges that in advocating speech codes, censorship, and other regulatory approaches to linguistic injury, hate speech theorists destroy ‘something fundamental about language and, more specifically, about the subject’s constitution in language’” (Disch 27: 545-559). She argues that empowering the state authorities that determine and mandate hate speech and censorship will only create new ways in which to discriminate.**

** Formation of the Subject **

**According to Butler, language and subjects are significant and work together in that “language is a process of reiteration carried forward by the (re)citations of subjects” (Vasterling 14: 17-38). However this reiteration can be ever-changing because of the fact that there are always shifts in meaning that occur. Butler argues that in relation to the social norms, the subject becomes dispossessed, in that the social has a strong influence over the subject’s formation.**

** Review of a Single Work – //Bodies the Matter// **

**In chapter three of this work, “Phantasmatic Identification and the Assumption of Sex,” Butler discusses gender, identification, and performativity. She argues against the idea that sexuality can be made or unmade. She also discusses the desire to think that sexuality is constructed or determined saying, “to think that it is constructed, it is in some sense free, and if it is determined, it is in some sense fixed. These oppositions do not describe the complexity of what is at stake in any effort to take account of the conditions under which sex and sexuality are assumed” (94). In this chapter she also speaks of theorist Jacques Lacan and his idea that “sex is a symbolic position that one assumes under the threat of punishment, … (95-96). Identifications are discussed in regards to desires, either the warding off of them or facilitation. Aspects regarding the phallus are discussed, observing the idea that women, already castrated, experience penis envy. Also, because of this, men fear becoming like women in fear of experiencing penis envy as well. Of sex, Butler argues that “‘Sex’ is always produced as a reiteration of hegemonic norms. This productive reiteration can be read as a kind of performativity” (107). Of identities, Butler maintains that “if identity is constructed through opposition, it is also constructed through rejection” (115).**

** Critical Response **

**Author Veronica Vasterling writing of critic Seyla Benhabib’s opinion of Butler’s work in her article “Butler’s Sophisticated Constructivism: A Critical Assessment” writes:**

**Benhabib accuses Butler of a complete debunking of any concepts of selfhood, agency, and autonomy, and she doubts whether Butler’s theory of performativity** **can explain not only the constitution of the self but also the resistance that this very self is capable of in the face power/discourse regimes. (Vasterling 14: 17-38)**

**Veronica Vasterling writes of Butler in her article “Butler’s Sophisticated Constructivism: A Critical Assessment”:**

**The general problem with Butler’s theoretical framework is that its conceptualization of the relation between language and subject is too restrictive. The** **relation typically is described as unilateral, with language forming and constructing the subject. Consequently, it is difficult to see how this subject can be** **capable of the kind of action Butler typically attributes to it, namely resignifying the significations that have formed this subject. (Vasterling 14: 17-38)**

**Anoop Nayak and Mary Jane Kehily write in their article “Gender Undone: Subversion, Regulation and Embodiment in the Work of Judith Butler” of her theory that centers on gender and performativity:**

**Butler’s work provides a provocative and compelling //anti-foundationalist// critique of identity; a critique that has divided some feminist scholars while at the same** **time enabling new positions to emerge across the landscape of Queer Theory and gender politics. (Nayak and Kehily 27: 459-472)**

** Notable Works **

**Gender Trouble (1990)** **Bodies That Matter (1993)** **Excitable Speech (1997)** **The Psychic Life of Power (1997)** **Undoing Gender (2004)** **Giving an Account of Oneself (2005)**

Links [] []

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. //Bodies That Matter//. New York: Routledge, 1993. Print.

Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Digeser, Peter. “Performativity Trouble: Postmodern Feminism and Essential Subjects.” //Political Research Quarterly// 47.3 (1994): 655-673. //JSTOR//. Web. 14 April 2011.

Disch, Lisa. “Judith Butler and the Politics of the Performative.” //Political Theory// 27.4 (1999): 545-559. //JSTOR//. Web. 14 April 2011.

Nayak, Anoop and Mary Jane Kehily. “Gender Undone: Subversion, Regulation and Embodiment in the Work of Judith Butler.” //British Journal of Sociology of Education// 27.4 (2006): 459-472. //JSTOR//. Web. 14 April 2011.

Vasterling, Veronica. “Butler’s Sophisticated Constructivism: A Critical Assessment.” //Hypatia// 14.3 (1999): 17-38. //JSTOR//. Web. 14 April 2011.

White, Stephen K. “As the World Turns: Ontology and Politics in Judith Butler.” //Polity// 32.2 (1999): 155-177. //JSTOR//. Web. 14 April 2011.

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