Judith Butler

Routledge Critical Thinkers

by Sara Salih, Robert Eaglestone (Series Editor)

Since the publication of Gender Trouble in 1990, Judith Butler has revolutionised our understanding of identities and the ways in which they are constructed. This volume examines her critical thought through key texts, touching upon such issues
* The subject
* Gender
* Sex
* Language
* The Psyche
With clear discussions of the context and impact of Butler's work and an extensive guide to further reading, this book offers an excellent introduction to one of the most influential critical thinkers writing today.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Feminism, Gender, Queer, Academia

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Librarian Note: Not to be confused with the medievalist Sarah Salih.

Sara Salih is a professor at the University of Kent in England, and formerly at the University of Toronto. Her research interests are in Caribbean, eighteenth century (especially early black writing, women’s prose fiction), postcolonial theory and writing.

Reviews

[فؤاد · Rating 4 out of 5]

هویت، اجراگری و زبان
کانت می‌گفت که ما صرفاً داده‌های بی‌واسطه‌ای از جهان بیرونی دریافت نمی‌کنیم، بلکه به شکلی فعالانه این داده‌ها را با مقولات ذهنی خود شکل می‌دهیم. فیلسوفان بعدی گفتند که این مقولات که به شناخت ما شکل می‌دهند، محصول زبان و جامعه هستند. ما از طریق زبان و مقولاتی که زبان در اختیار ما می‌گذارد، جهان را درک می‌کنیم. «هویت» هم از این قاعده مستثنی نیست. ما از طریق زبان هویت خود را درک می‌کنیم.

به باور باتلر اشتباه فمینیست‌های نسل اول آن است که «زن» را هویتی از پیش موجود در نظر می‌گرفتند. «خود» امر ثابت و منسجمی نیست که از پیش وجود داشته باشد، همان طور که سیمون دوبووار می‌گوید:
«انسان زن زاده نمی‌شود، بلکه زن می‌شود.»

هویت یا «خود» ما از دو طریق شکل می‌گیرد:

۱. اجراگری
۲. زبان

اجراگری
اجراگری یعنی اعمالی که پیوسته انجام می‌شود، و همین اعمال خود و هویت ما را می‌سازد. برای مثال هویت مردانه با رفتارهایی خاص، ظاهر خاص، نقش‌های خاص و... تعریف و ساخته می‌شود. خود و هویت ما جدا از اعمالی که پیوسته انجام می‌دهیم وجود ندارد، بازیگری جدا از بازی وجود ندارد.
ما این اعمال تکرارشونده را آگاهانه انتخاب و تکرار نمی‌کنیم، بلکه از پیش در فرهنگی متولد شده‌ایم که هویت جنسی ما و اعمالی که تعیین‌کنندۀ آن است را به ما تحمیل می‌کند. گرچه ما همواره با این فرهنگ در تعاملیم و آگاهانه یا ناآگاهانه هویت تحمیل شده بر خود را از طریق تکرار اعمال بازتولید می‌کنیم.

در نتیجه گرچه هویت جنسی ممکن است به نظر سخت و متصلب به نظر برسد، اما در واقع سیّال، و پیوسته در حال شکل گرفتن است: اعمالی که با انجام دادن پیوسته‌شان هویت جنسی شکل می‌گیرد، ممکن است روزی تغییر کنند و معنای زن بودن و مرد بودن نیز تغییر کند. برای مثال آرایش کردن و پوشیدن کفش پاشنه‌بلند که امروزه اعمالی زنانه‌اند، در اروپای قرن هجدهم رفتارهایی مردانه بودند.

زبان
دومین امری که در ساخت هویت جنسی ما دخیل است، زبان و ساختارهای زبانی (گفتمان) است که جامعه ما را بر اساس آن تقسیم‌بندی و نامگذاری می‌کند.
اینجا باتلر قدمی فراتر می‌گذارد و می‌گوید نه تنها هویت جنسی، بلکه حتی جنسیت بیولوژیکی نیز محصول گفتمان است. ما هیچ گاه بدن خود را به شکل بی‌واسطه درک نمی‌کنیم، بلکه همواره آن را از خلال زبان، ساختارهای مفهومی و چهارچوب ذهنی که جامعه در اختیار ما می‌گذارد درک می‌کنیم. در نتیجه تفسیر ما از بدنمان همواره برساختی اجتماعی است.

درست است که انسان‌ها از لحاظ آلت جنسی با هم تفاوت دارند، اما این که آلت جنسی مبنای تقسیم‌بندی انسان‌ها به دو جنس شود، امری زبانی و اجتماعی است. زبان با تقسیم‌بندی انسان‌ها بر اساس آلت جنسی معنایی به آلت جنسی می‌دهد که خود در واقع فاقد آن است. می‌توان تصور کرد امر دیگری مبنای تقسیم انسان‌ها به دو جنس مرد و زن شود، همچون «خود اظهاری». در این صورت صرف این که شخص بخواهد هویت زنانه داشته باشد، دارای ملاک معتبر برای زن بودن است.

مقاومت
اما اگر خود و هویت ما توسط زبان و اعمالی تعریف می‌شود که فرهنگ و ساختار قدرت بر ما تحمیل کرده، اگر خود و هویت مجزایی پشت زبان و اجراگری وجود ندارد، ما چه عاملیتی می‌توانیم داشته باشیم؟ چگونه می‌توانیم در برابر این ساختارهای محدود کننده مقاومت کنیم؟

روش اصلی مقاومت که باتلر معرفی می‌کند، «تحریف» است.

تحریف در اجراگری یعنی دستکاری اعمالی که بر ما تحمیل می‌شود و تغییر معنای آن‌ها. این همان کاری است که دِرَگ انجام می‌دهد: مردی که لباس زنانه می‌پوشد و آرایش زنانه می‌کند و به شکلی نمایشی و افراطی زنانه رفتار می‌کند، یا زنی که لباس مردانه می‌پوشد و به شکلی نمایشی و افراطی مردانه رفتار می‌کند. در نظر باتلر درگ با برجسته کردن ماهیت تصنعی هویت جنسی، آن را به نقد می‌کشد و به شکلی ریشخندآمیز به یاد مخاطب می‌آورد که هویت جنسی به شکلی ضروری با جنسیت فیزیکی مرتبط نیست، بلکه برساخته‌ای اجتماعی است.

در عرصهٔ زبان هم تحریف ممکن است. تحریف در عرصهٔ زبان یعنی نقل قول نادرست یا تقطیع شده، برای تغییر معنای واقعی کلمات. ما با نقل قول نادرست و ریشخندآمیز همان ساختارهای زبانی که ما را شکل می‌دهند، می‌توانیم ساختگی بودن آن‌ها را عیان کنیم و مرجعیت آن‌ها را به سخره بگیریم. مثالی از تحریف، مصادرۀ عناوین اهانت‌آمیز (همچون «سلیطه» و «هرزه») و استفادۀ آن‌ها به شکلی ریشخندآمیز/غرورآمیز برای خود است.

این تحریف به خصوص به خاطر چیزی که ژاک دریدا «تعویق» می‌نامد، ممکن می‌شود. بنا به دریدا، کلمات هیچ گاه مدلولی نهایی ندارند، بلکه مدلول کلمات همیشه ناکامل است و همواره در آینده بیشتر شکل خواهد گرفت. همین به تعویق افتادن معنی و بسته نبودن مدلول کلمات، فضایی در اختیار ما می‌گذارد که معنی آن‌ها را تحریف کنیم.

یک تأمل
جودیت باتلر برای توضیح این که چگونه ممکن است شخص بیرون از نظام گفتمانی عاملیتی داشته باشد تا مقاومت ممکن شود، به مشکل بر می‌خورد. اگر «خود» توسط نظام گفتمانی ساخته شده، چطور ممکن است جدا از نظام گفتمانی عاملیتی مستقل داشته باشد؟

اما مشکل اینجاست که گویا باتلر نطام گفتمانی را نظامی یکپارچه و منسجم در نظر می‌گیرد. در حالی که در واقعیت، هر شخص از بدو تولد با نظام‌های گفتمانی متعددی روبروست و هر یک به شکلی «خود» او را تعریف می‌کنند: شخص نخستین بار با گفتار مادرش روبرو می‌شود و نخستین هویتش ذیل این نظام گفتمانی تعریف می‌شود. سپس به تدریج گفتارهای دوستان، مدرسه، رسانه، دین و دولت به این گفتار مادرانه اضافه می‌شوند، بدون این که هیچ یک به طور کامل با هم هماهنگ باشند. عدم هماهنگی نظام‌های گفتاری که شخص را تعریف می‌کنند، به شخص آزادی می‌دهد که هویتی که از یک نظام به دست آورده را علیه هویت دیگرش به کار بگیرد. برای مثال گفتار مادرانه عموماً (در صورتی که مادر آسیب‌زننده نبوده باشد) آزادی بسیاری به شخص اعطا می‌کند که شخص تا پایان عمر به عنوان مرجعی برای قابلیت‌هایش در یاد نگه می‌دارد و علیه محدودیت‌هایی که نظام‌های گفتاری بعدی بر او اعمال می‌کنند به کار می‌گیرد.

[Γιώργος Γεωργόπουλος · Rating 5 out of 5]

Για μια ακόμη φορά οι εκδόσεις oposito με τη σειρά personas αποτέλεσαν την καλύτερη αφορμή για περαιτέρω αναζήτηση. Το προηγούμενο που διάβασα της ίδιας σειράς για το Λακάν με οδήγησε να διαβάσω αρκετά ακόμη για το έργο του. Το ίδιο ξεκίνησε να γίνεται και με τη Μπάτλερ.

[Sara Hosseini]

از متن کتاب:
باتلر -برخلاف مک کینان- بازنمایی های پورنوگرافیک را همچون امر فانتزی می بیند. تمثیلاتی غیرواقعی و ادراک ناشدنی از سکسوالیته ای ناممکن که قدرتی برای جراحت وارد کردن و آسیب زدن ندارند. باتلر، پورنوگرافی را به مثابه «زمینه ای برای واقعی نبودنِ جنسیت» توصیف و استدلال می کند که پورنوگرافی، قلمرویی از وضعیت های ادراک ناشدنی را ترسیم می کند که واقعیت اجتماعیِ اَشکالِ جنسیت را کنترل می کند اما، به بیان دقیق تر، آن واقعیت را برساخت نمی کند. درواقع، این شکست در امرِ برساخت است که به ایماژ پورنوگرافیک، قدرت فانتزی ای را می دهد که هم اکنون داراست.

فصل زبان رو از این کتاب خوندم و خیلی راضی بودم از خوانشی که از باتلر درباره این مبحث ارائه کرده. منتهی انتظارم این بود که کمی از ابعاد حقوقی ماجرا فاصله بگیره و بیشتر به معنای اجراگری در اندیشه باتلر و همینطور ابعاد سیاسی دیگری که باتلر به این ماجرا می بخشه بپردازه.

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 4 out of 5]

O presente livro está dividido da seguinte forma:
- Por que Butler? Onde Salih discorre sobre as principais influências de Butler: Beauvoir, Wittig, Rubin, Hegel, Nietzsche, Foucault, Freud, Lacan, Althusser, Derrida e Austin.
- Ideias-chave, divididas em 5 capítulos:
1- O sujeito: Um apanhado geral das considerações butlerianas a respeito do sujeito hegeliano contidos em Subjects of Desire.
2- O gênero: Entrada na teoria queer propriamente dita através da análise de Gender Trouble, que é uma mistura das teorias psicanalíticas, foucaultianas e feministas.
3- O sexo: Salih aqui discorre sobre o amálgama teórico presente em Bodies that Matter a respeito da sexualidade pontuando a interpelação (Althusser), o performativo (Austin), a significação (Freud e Lacan), o constructo (Foucault) e a recitação (Derrida).
4- A linguagem: A partir do livro Excitable Speech Salih analisa a proposta de Butler em não censurar as palavras ofensivas e sim coloca-las em processo de ressignificação.
5- A psique: The Psychic Life of Power segundo Salih faria um casamento entre o conceito de poder foucaultiano e a psicanálise.
- Depois de Butler: Um apanhado geral das maiores críticas que outros pensadores tinham a respeito de Butler, como o estilo de escrita difícil, a impossibilidade da performatividade como resistência para as mulheres socialmente marginais e a aparente passividade normativa da posição política de Butler.

No geral é um ótimo livro para se conhecer o pensamento corrente de Butler até os anos 2000, mas um tanto defasado porque tanto a teoria queer quanto o pensamento sócio-político de Butler (apesar do diálogo constante com suas obras anteriores) evoluíram nos últimos 15 anos.

[Joseph Sverker]

It can only be said that this is an excellent introduction to Butler's work up until around 2000. Salih has a impressive knowledge of Butler's sources and explains Butler's use of Freud, Foucault and Althusser (amongst others) with great clarity. This means that Butler is also expressed with greater clarity. The book is structured chronologically where each chapter deals with Butler's major books. In this way one can trace a development in Butler's thinking.

Salih mainly presents and explains Butler's ideas, but she is not completely uncritical against Butler. There is a underlying critique about the homosexual cathexis, but most of all Salih questions (rightly in my mind) where Butler is successful in doing away with the active subject when applying Althusser's theory of interpellation in a Foucauldian framework. It seems as if a subject is needed in the respons and acknowledgement that a change has happened in the interpellation (for more explanation of this, see the last two chapters of the book).

It is in no ways an easy read and Salih makes it clear to her readers that reading Butler is not easy in itself and Salih does not want to simplify things too much and in that way trivialize Butler. Having said that, the one who takes the time and mental energy to read this book will have a very good grasp of what Butler's project (up until Psychic Life of Power) is about. I only wish that a second edition will arrive where Salih includes the more political turn in Butler's thinking, from Precarious Life and onwards. But that is probably to wish for too much.

In the final chapter Salih provides and overview of the response to Butler and once more I am incredibly impressed by the width of reading that she has done for this book. She seem thoroughly entrenched (if that is a positive word, I hope it is) in the field of feminist and gender studies.

[Ke · Rating 4 out of 5]

即使跟着读书会啃下这本，全程有哲学生导读，依然感觉自己还是云里雾里。会好好了解推荐的基础理论和进阶阅读。

[Gilles · Rating 3 out of 5]

fenomenologisch gezien is het fenomenaal maar de theorie zelf is niet mijn meu. ik snap wat ze bedoeld, maar ben er niet zo een voorstander van.
2de boek dat ik lees in deze 'serie' en ben er echt wel fan van. 'beter' of meer technischer dan de Oxford series.
3.5/5

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a succinct (152 pages) and clearly written introduction to Judith Butler’s ideas, as expressed in publications up to about 2000, and organised around five key subject headings: The Subject, Gender, Sex, Language and the Psyche. It includes chapter summaries, tables of information and a fair amount of helpful repetition and review that all greatly assist the reader in navigating the diverse topics and rather elaborate arguments along the way. It is a sympathetic account, though it does acknowledge quite a number of glaring failures in Butler’s arguments along the way. The general impression is that Sara Salih is trying not to impose her own point of view on the reader but to enable the reader, within reason, to engage directly with Butler’s proposals. It is also possible to see from this introductory guide which, if any, of Butler’s own writings might be of most interest for further reading. For the civilian in this culture war zone, reading nothing else would be a perfectly justified option and I think Salih still leaves us sufficiently well informed.

Butler is considered important because she has a following in many disciplines and her supporters praise her work to the skies. After reading this overview of her theories, I have to admit that I am surprised. She may be culturally important in the way that the TV series Neighbours is, but her theories are highly idiosyncratic.

Hegel’s Phenomenology celebrated the triumph of the human spirit in Napoleon’s Europe circa 1806. Freud’s seminal Interpretation of Dreams was published in 1899. For Butler to make sense, we must prefer their theoretical frameworks rather than, say, the 20th century achievements of the scientific method. We must also accept that she has successfully improved upon their ideas.

I don’t accept Butler’s reading of Hegel, in so far as it is displayed here. I like the comparison of his Phenomenology to a quest and I might look into her discussion of the way later writers interpreted Hegel, based on her PhD. I just cannot make Hegel into a justification for the delusion that the world is entirely a mental construction, whether of the individual mind or of a social process. Hegel does indeed say that when we search for the world we ultimately discover ourselves. This is not because the world is our fantasy and it is not because the world is unknowable. It is because we are part of the world, we are enmeshed in reality. Hegel was not a fan of Eastern mysticism – the Buddhist notion of no self – and he did not say, in my reading of Phenomenology, that there is no subject. If the subject is indeed constructed by means of its own efforts to grasp reality, that is a developmental process, an unfolding, a process of self-discovery not self-invention, a realization of the self as the subject who sees the world looking back, not as a mirror but as an other. This is, of course, the challenge of seeing that the world is not organised around us and that we need to find a place in the world.

I don’t understand the continuing popularity of theories about human nature based on a speculative – frankly, an arbitrary elaboration of Freud’s undisciplined writing. Freud did not construct his model of human psychology empirically and he was deeply hostile to empirical challenges, or even to speculative disagreements. His methods and his ethics have been severely challenged even within the psychoanalytical tradition itself (notably the infuriating arrogance of his self-analysis). His innovations in psychotherapy were indeed transformational but he was working many decades in advance of the development of modern, experimental psychology and his theories about personality and child development really cannot be used as reliable foundations for new thinking. What is possible of course, is to follow the subsequent developments in psychotherapy and psychiatry, the emergence of long term empirical research in everything from child development to neuroscience and to recognise the many positive ways in which classical psychoanalysis has been able to evolve new models, from Object Relations Theory to Transactional Analysis to Relational therapies. The whole field remains open to interesting new developments. However, anyone announcing yet another in the long line of speculative, “Freudian” theories about life, the universe and everything is to my mind selling snake oil.

Just one example of a serious social scientist working in a relevant field was Ann Oakley, whose 1972 publication -Sex, Gender and Society – established within the social sciences the important conceptual distinction between sex and gender; two related but quite distinct, logically different categories. Oakley’s point is that gender roles are cultural, social phenomena, different cultures have conflicting expectations of men and women, the idea of specific feminine or masculine roles correlating with female or male sex is ideological and can be challenged. Simone de Beauvoir was also clear, thirty years earlier, that the most important fact about her own life was that she was a woman, but that the unjustified and unjust expectations placed on her as a woman were – again – ideological. The development of a girl into a woman was therefore a process of socialisation into the expectations of her particular social setting.

Salih seems to say that Butler is claiming credit for understanding the real nature of sex and gender. “Butler declares that “all gender is, by definition, unnatural,” before she proceeds to unprise sex and gender from what many would assume to be their inevitable connection to each other. Butler departs from the common assumption that sex, gender and sexuality exist in relation to each other, so that if, for example, one is biologically female, one is expected to display feminine traits…” She may indeed depart from the common assumption in society, but it was a fully discredited assumption in feminist circles and in related social science long before Butler came on the scene. It is tiresome that she proceeds to depart from many other achievements of feminist theory, in ways that require a huge effort to unpick.

Butler often seems to make logical leaps that are not justified. Since her whole project is constructed from long chains of reasoning, this is no small defect.

A) We are not born understanding reality; we construct our picture of reality as we develop, we can be mistaken and we can be influenced on the way we do this. B) Therefore either there is no reality, or we can never know the truth about reality. C) Of course we can. We would not have survived as a species without a very good capacity to evaluate reality. Our bridges do not often fall down.

A) Women are socialised differently to men. B) Therefore, in the absence of socialisation, women and men are fundamentally the same. C) That does not follow logically. There are different consequence for men and women of their physical biology (and Simone de Beauvoir was very clear about this).

A) Herculine Barbin, a 29th Century “hermaphrodite”, had a congenital disorder of sexual development that made it difficult (at that time) to categorise her as female or male. B) Therefore sexual categories are not adequately determined by physical anatomy and in Butler’s view, the sex/gender distinction is not valid, sex is gender and culturally determined. C) Nonsense. On the contrary, this very rare disorder was precisely the source of confusion, without which sexual categories work impeccably for over 99.9% of the population. The problem with Herculine Barbin was the lack of medical expertise to clarify her sex, and it was a problem with her material body, not a cultural problem.

An example of bizarre reasoning is the following: “A girl is not born a girl, she is ‘girled’, to use Butler’s coinage, at or before birth, on the basis of whether she has a penis or a vagina. This is an arbitrary distinction, and Butler will argue that sexed body parts are invested with significance, so it would follow that infants could just as well be differentiated from each other on the basis of other parts – the size of their ear lobes, the colour of their eyes, the flexibility of their tongues…. The language that seems merely to describe the body actually constitutes it.” This word salad might conceivably carry some weight in a literature class, perhaps discussing the merits of different descriptive terms in poetry or the invention of caricatures. It is just not acceptable in a serious discussion of sex, which has to be capable of considering many different aspects of the same phenomenon. Sex is an evolved characteristic and we are aware that evolutionary pressures have established a wide range of distinctive sex differences at the levels of biology, anatomy, biochemistry, functionality, of which the defining difference is of course the production of either small or large gametes. Sex differences are profound, not trivial, and largely revolve around reproductive processes. A discussion of sex that cannot address these issues is itself trivial, no matter how many long words are slotted into complicated sentences.

The political nature of Butler’s theories is referred to in a number of contexts and seems to revolve around her use of language and her commitment to queer theory.

“While gender studies, gay and lesbian studies and feminist theory may have assumed the existence of the ‘subject’ (i.e. the gay subject, the lesbian subject, the ‘female’, ‘feminine’ subject), queer theory undertakes an investigation and a deconstruction of these categories, affirming the indeterminacy and instability of all sexed and gendered identities.” [p9]

“Butler asserts that Derrida’s citationality will be useful as a queer strategy of converting the abjection and exclusion of non-sanctioned sexed and gendered identities into political agency.” [p91]

“If Butler’s prose style is performative, it would make little sense for her to theorize the incoherent, incomplete, unstable subject in sentences that present themselves as lucid, finished and epistemologically ‘solid’.” [p145]

The idea that it is liberating or emancipatory to use confusing language is open to obvious criticism. Perhaps the strongest critical comment cited in this book is a famous 1999 essay, The Professor of Parody, by Martha Nussbaum, arguing that “1) Butler’s prose style is elitist, allusive and authoritarian; 2) what Nussbaum calls ‘feminist thinkers of the new symbolic type’ reduce materiality -particularly suffering and oppression – to what feminists regard as ‘an insufficiency of signs’; and 3) language is not equivalent to political action and believing that it results in political quietism and collaboration with evil.” [p145] Salih responds rhetorically: complaining that “Although Nussbaum rehearses a litany of oppression and the oppressed, these ‘real women’ in ’real’ pain remain troublingly unspecified and there are no ‘concrete’ examples of the sort of interventions feminist philosophers working in American universities should make.” [p146] It is not Nussbaum’s job to give Butler a remedial action plan or otherwise rescue Butler from her failings. Carrie Hull has said (in The Ontology of Sex): "Martha Nussbaum... has levelled a scathing criticism of scholars who create an "aura of importance" by refusing to state their own beliefs, thereby assuming the status of an intellectual star rather than an "arguer among equals.""

For my part I have two types of concern. One is that I do not think Butler would attract such vocal support if she did not have an impact in the real world and the second is that I see her impact in the impetus given to queer theory and related social policies. When Foucault or Gayle Rubin discuss the oppression of marginal sexual groups or the need for greater sexual liberty, I do not have to join hands with the religious right or extreme social conservatives in order to point out that a decent society has boundaries of acceptable sexual behaviour for reasons that many would wish to defend. Behind Rubin’s euphemisms for example are a stout defence of the sex industry and a defence of paedophilia. I suspect that the generous funding for academics like Butler and other variants of queer studies is associated with the sex industry and the burgeoning gender reassignment industry, whose markets expand as social boundaries are blurred; I don’t see this as empowering or emancipatory for anyone except capitalists. I would prefer to see Butler be more explicit about which marginal groups she wants to render more acceptable and I would like to have the freedom to challenge this without being insulted. Salih has done the excellent service of making Butler more accessible, the better to question her malevolent influence.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

სარას მადლობა ყველაფრისთვის და, ასევე, მადლობა იესო ქრისტეს, რომელმაც აღდგომა გადაწყვიტა და დასვენების 4 დღე მაჩუქა, რომ საბაკალავრო არ შემეტენოს. <3

[Ruan]

Ou "Quem mexeu na minha Judith Butler?"

[barbs (don't friend me) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a very good attempt at explaining Butler's ideas, although they are quite confusing and difficult to grasp.

I also found the 'further reading' section useful!

[Julius The Blood-Thirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Butler theory simplified greatly although maybe to its detriment ?? A great introduction which is also thoughtful in its explanation.

[Shoon Teoh · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who is somewhaat familiar with Butler's theories, this reader does a great job of grounding Butlers development by exploring her philosophical sources, going into depth on the influence of Foucault, Althusser, Satre and Lacan on Butler's thought. Some of Butler's thought (who is already a notoriously confusing writer) is elucidated well if you can make it past some of the overly long theoretical foundations that Salih seems prone to expound on. Would recommend to people looking to better understand Butler, just be sure to skim where appropriate.

[Mmelbi · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب رائع يشرح خمسة نقاط رئيسية في فلسفة بتلر: الذات، الجندر، الجنس، اللغة، النفس the psyche. ممكن يقال عنه برأيي كتاب عن بتلر الشابة، بتلر المنظرة للجندر بعيدا عن بعض أفكارها المتقدمة خصوصا في فعل الكلام speech act. كتاب رائع يعطي صورة لفلسفة بتلر بلغة مختلفة عن أسلوب كتابة بتلر، البعض يقول أنه يقدم الأفكار بصورة و مبسطة اكثر. لكن بالحقيقة استمتعت جدا بأسلوب كتابة بتلر و التزامها باستخدام الفواصل و النقاط بعبقرية.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little too defensive of Butler, but otherwise an awesome book on Butler's philosophy, theory, and writing style.

[Joel Modiri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting summary and interpretation of Judith Butler's body of work.

[Christoph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, introductory overview of Butler's work.

[Burl Horniachek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Butler is completely bonkers, but Salih does a good job of explaining her thought.

[William Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was grateful for this brief but excellent overview of philosopher Judith Butler’s main ideas and books because Butler's own writing, I find, resists comprehension. Here is a case where, for me, it was a secondary source or nothing.

On Gender
Gender is socially constructed, Butler says. One’s “sex” is one’s biological endowment, but that doesn’t have much, if anything, to do with gender, which is learned. A person is socialized into gendered consciousness prior to having strong conceptual or reasoning ability. By the time you are old enough to think about gender, it is too late. Your whole socially constructed ego is built on its foundation.

Gender is a verb, not a noun, Butler says. Gender is as gender does, within a regulated social frame. There is no such thing as intrinsic gender identification behind the social expressions of gender. Performance of gender (prior to self-awareness) IS gender. You cannot (easily) choose your gender because you exist in a social context that constrains your universe. But some people, transgender individuals, have chosen gender. That proves it can be chosen and is not determined by sex.

Homosexual Melancholy
Taking her cue from psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, Butler asks, who is the one person in the world you love most? Yourself, of course. That makes you homosexual! It’s more than a joke. In neo-Freudian object-relations theory there are plausible arguments that the formation of the individual ego comes about when the infant realizes that the primary caregiver (usually mother) is a separate being from one’s self. At that point, the primordial unity of infancy is lost and you are on your own, and mother is on her own.

The rest of your life, you unconsciously mourn for the loss of your primary homosexuality, back when it was all about you. In fact, the society (e.g., mother) insists that you give up your primary homosexuality in order to become a realistic ego that acknowledges other egos. Hence, in Butler’s construal of psychological development, heterosexuality is a symptom, an expression of mourning for a loss of that infantile ego-ideal. Heterosexuals are psychologically melancholy (even if they don’t know it), forever and impossibly trying to reunite with the lost social other.

That probably sounds pretty far out for a layperson, but for someone familiar with neo-Freudian theory it makes a lot of sense. I’m not a Freudian, so I disagree with the idea, but I learned a lot in re-examining all those basic assumptions.

The Body
The biological, physical body is also a social construction, according to Butler. At least I think that’s what she’s saying. The body is an imagined structure, she says, imagined and contoured by discourse and socialization. There is plenty of research to support the idea.

But is that all the body is? Butler is characteristically ambiguous on this crucial point of ontology. She was once asked directly “Is there a physical body prior to socialization?” She answered with delicious ambiguity, “It is impossible to decide.” Lately, I am tending toward radical constructivism on this point. The physical body is indeed a very elaborate, socially diffused, transpersonal concept. Butler has helped me think this through.

The Female Phallus
A phallus is a symbol of the penis. A phallus exists entirely within discourse, as a symbol. Thus the term, phallic symbol, is redundant. There is no biological phallus because it is just a symbol. No one can literally have a phallus. Or, anyone can. Even women. A phallic woman, especially a lesbian, has the characteristics of a phallus: strong, erect, penetrating, forceful, and so on. According to Butler, accepting the idea of the female phallus breaks the heterosexual hegemony of its significance. There are implications, to say the least.

Performative Speech
Following J.L. Austin’s speech act theory, Butler notes that certain states of being can be caused by speech alone. When a preacher says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the pronouncement makes it so. Language has that power. Butler extends this notion. When the doctor in the delivery room announces “It’s a boy!” that makes it a boy. The doctor is not giving a description, but a constitutive speech act.

Again I agree with her, but I ask, are there no additional dimensions to the doctor’s pronouncement? If the doctor pronounced “It’s a boy” upon a baby with a vagina, would the doctor be wrong? Butler’s intriguing analyses does not consider counterexamples.

Still, her deployment of speech act theory is challenging and productive. She applies it well to categories of state speech, hate speech, and pornography. Her analysis of labor relations was less compelling for me, but still good.

Butler is a philosopher rich in exciting ideas, and this brief book condenses them into a potent brew. I haven’t been successful in recommending it to students and colleagues. They find the ideas too preposterous. That’s their loss.