Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex"

New York: Routledge (1993)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

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. She 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.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Performativity, Parody, Politics.Moya Lloyd - 1999 - Theory, Culture and Society 16 (2):195-213.
Judith Butler.Sara Salih - 2002 - New York: Routledge.
Subject trouble: Judith Butler and dialectics.Marcel Stoetzler - 2005 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 31 (3):343-368.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
258 (#70,928)

6 months
11 (#127,802)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Judith Butler
University of California, Berkeley

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references