Amazon.com
In a new introduction to the 10th-anniversary edition of Gender Trouble--among the two or three most influential books (and by far the most popular) in the field of gender studies--Judith Butler explains the complicated critical response to her groundbreaking arguments and the ways her ideas have evolved as a result. Nevertheless, she has resisted the urge to revise what has become a feminist classic (as well as an elegant defense of drag, given Butler's emphasis on the performative nature of gender). The book was produced, according to Butler, "as part of the cultural life of a collective struggle that has had, and will continue to have, some success in increasing the possibilities for a livable life for those who live, or try to live, on the sexual margins." An attack on the essentialism of French feminist theory and its basis in structuralist anthropology, Gender Trouble expands to address the cultural prejudices at play in genetic studies of sex determination, as well as the uses of gender parody, and also provides a critical genealogy of the naturalization of sex. A primer in gender studies--and sexy reading for college cafés. --Regina Marler Book Description
Since its publication in 1990, Gender Trouble has become one of the key works of contemporary feminist theory, and an essential work for anyone interested in the study of gender, queer theory, or the politics of sexuality in culture. This is the text where Judith Butler began to advance the ideas that would go on to take life as "performativity theory," as well as some of the first articulations of the possibility for subversive gender practices, and she writes in her preface to the 10th anniversary edition released in 1999 that one point of Gender Trouble was "not to prescribe a new gendered way of life [...] but to open up the field of possibility for gender [...]" Widely taught, and widely debated, Gender Trouble continues to offer a powerful critique of heteronormativity and of the function of gender in the modern world.Download Description
In this highly-acclaimed subversive book, Butler examines the `trouble' with unproblematized appeals to sex/gender identities. A seminal text for gender studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Critiquing Gender
Butler, Judith. "Gender Trouble", Routledge, 2007.

Critiquing Gender

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

When I first started studying gender issues, I discovered Judith Butler and she has been a hero of mine ever since. She challenges you with her theories of sex, gender and sexuality. Her book "Gender Trouble" has been deemed a classic by those who follow her theoretical approach.
"Gender Trouble" has been very important in shaping modern queer theory with its premise that it is time for us to rethink how we understand gender issues and sexual orientation and preference. Butler gives us a classist approach to understand gender but the problem here seems to be that her study concentrates on modern white upper class academia. Some of her ideas could quite naturally apply to all of us if we throw the class ideas out. To destabilize gender from its binary classification would indeed be a liberating experience but Butler has not challenged all of society or the entire social order. Because writing is engaging in political activity, Butler challenges the existing patriarchy found in many places of the world today. Because of this the book may read as more of an elitist manifesto than a handbook that we all can use. To me it was easy enough to take her ideas and formulate my own theory of how we should look at gender and sexuality and regardless of her elitism, there is a g great deal of valuable information to be found in her book.
Butler poses the idea of nature versus nurture as important to the idea of gender and this is challenging in itself. But even more interesting is our approach to labeling. When we look at the labels we use today--male/female, masculine/feminine, man/woman--we see a distinct binary. Looking further at the issue of sexuality, we get sexuality/sexual orientation. There seems to be nothing that falls in between.
Butler has truly allowed me to see how I regard the world and how so many others look at society. Gender is not an easy topic to discuss and Butter does so with great agility and knowledge on a very touchy issue. We ask ourselves what we think of when we use the words "heterosexual", "homosexual" and just plain "sexual". What is it about these words that give them permanency and meaning? Better yet, why do these words conceal thought rather reveal it? Gender is "performative" in the words of Michel Foucault, the French existentialist. Is it indeed a role worn on occasion or is it a cultural activity that often repeats itself?
Many complain that it is difficult to understand the language that Butter uses. I do not agree. To understand Butler, you must put yourself into the frame of mind that you want to understand what she has to say. She says a lot and to read her is to get a better understanding of what the gender issue is all about.

Fascinating Ideas, Infuriating Writing Style
Readers who are willing to tolerate labyrinthine sentences and brain-cramping scholarly vocabulary and who already have a working understanding of Freud, Lacan, Foucault, and deconstruction will find in Butler a challenging, highly stimulating theorist of sex, gender, and sexuality.

Readers looking for a breezy and accessible discussion of gender roles in modern society should definitely look elsewhere.

Gender Trouble is troublesome
While I recognize the importance of this text on the shaping of current queer theory and agree with Butler that we need to rethink our understanding of sexual orientation and gender dichotomies, I am nevertheless bothered by the absence of economic and racial issues in her work. Indeed, her dry, tedious, at times inaccessible writing style reeks of classism. This is a shame because I do believe that many of her ideas could truly benefit people living outside of white, ruling-class academia. After all, the destabilization of the gender binary is a liberating notion for everyone, regardless of one's economic position. However, by not de-centering whiteness and addressing class, Butler's work, like most postmodernist theory, does not go far enough in challenging the social order. Queer capitalism is after all still capitalism. Needless to say, how one writes is in itself a political act. Had Bultler been truly interested in emancipating large numbers of people oppressed by the patriarchy it seems to me that she would have written the book in a more approachable manner. Of course, by calling this book elitist, I do not wish to reinforce the condescending notion that poor people are stupid. To the contrary, I believe that people oppressed by poverty and racism have much that they could teach to white, ruling-class intellectuals like Judith Butler. Interestingly, Butler's title for this book was inspired by the highly offensive John Waters movie, "Female Trouble", a depraved movie that brutally ridicules women of size, poor women, and transgendered women. Though Butler no doubt thinks that the title of her book is clever and witty, I find it a disturbing indication of Butler's indifference to real human suffering. Instead of wasting your money on this pretentious book, why not donate that money instead to your local battered women's shelter or lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community center?

Quick and Clean
The seller shipped this book to me immediately and with the exception of a few notes in the margin (which they warned about) it is in remarkably good condition.Would reccomend.

Imagine Honduran Women makes Clothes in a Sweatshop...
ing clothes....think of the Butlerian strategy of it all!

Are they undoing gender? Wow! And on pennies a day, too!

Think of the androgynous gay boy who might wear the same clothes as his bestest girlfriend. Think of the subversiveness of it all!

Consider the fact that maybe the slave woman in Honduras made those clothes!

How Butlerian, indeed!
... Read more

Book Description
What does it mean to lead a moral life?In her first extended study of moral philosophy, Judith Butler offers a provocative outline for a new ethical practice—one responsive to the need for critical autonomy and grounded in a new sense of the human subject.Butler takes as her starting point one’s ability to answer the questions “What have I done?” and “What ought I to do?” She shows that these question can be answered only by asking a prior question, “Who is this ‘I’ who is under an obligation to give an account of itself and to act in certain ways?” Because I find that I cannot give an account of myself without accounting for the social conditions under which I emerge, ethical reflection requires a turn to social theory.In three powerfully crafted and lucidly written chapters, Butler demonstrates how difficult it is to give an account of oneself, and how this lack of self-transparency and narratibility is crucial to an ethical understanding of the human. In brilliant dialogue with Adorno, Levinas, Foucault, and other thinkers, she eloquently argues the limits, possibilities, and dangers of contemporary ethical thought.Butler offers a critique of the moral self, arguing that the transparent, rational, and continuous ethical subject is an impossible construct that seeks to deny the specificity of what it is to be human. We can know ourselves only incompletely, and only in relation to a broader social world that has always preceded us and already shaped us in ways we cannot grasp. If inevitably we are partially opaque to ourselves, how can giving an account of ourselves define the ethical act? And doesn’t an ethical system that holds us impossibly accountable for full self-knowledge and self-consistency inflict a kind of psychic violence, leading to a culture of self-beratement and cruelty? How does the turn to social theory offer us a chance to understand the specifically social character of our own unknowingness about ourselves?In this invaluable book, by recasting ethics as a project in which being ethical means becoming critical of norms under which we are asked to act, but which we can never fully choose, Butler illuminates what it means for us as “fallible creatures” to create and share an ethics of vulnerability, humility, and ethical responsiveness. Judtith Butler is the Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. The most recent of her books are Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence and Undoing Gender. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent, Engaging
This book is terrific! I recomend it to anyone familiar with Butler's work (though it is very distinct from much of her older work) or for anyone who thinks it looks even the slightest bit interesting. Even if you disagree with Butler, the book won't disappoint! ... Read more

Book Description
The Judith Butler Reader is a collection of writings that span her impressive career and trace her intellectual history.

• Judith Butler, author of influential books such as Gender Trouble, has built her international reputation as a theorist of power, gender, sexuality and identity.
  
• Organized in active collaboration between Judith Butler and Sara Salih.
  
• Collects together writings that span Butler’s impressive career as a critical philosopher, including selections from both well-known and lesser-known works.
  
• Includes an introduction and editorial material to assist students in their readings of theories that stand at the forefront of contemporary theoretical and political debates.

Book Description
In a world of migration and shifting allegiances, the state has become a more provisional place and its inhabitants more stateless. What is contained in a state has become ever more plural while the boundaries of a state have become ever more fluid. No longer does a state naturally come with a nation. This book is set in the form of a conversation between two renowned thinkers, Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak, who discuss the fact that globalization has made things like national anthems and political boundaries obsolete. The result is a spirited and engaging conversation that ranges widely across Palestine, what Enlightenment and key contemporary philosophers have said about the state, who exercises power in today's world, whether we can have a right to rights, and even what the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner" in Spanish says about the complex world we live in today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Scholarly status is not a general license
Butler and Spivak have repeatedly earned respect for their scholarship.This (essays, dialogue, non-book?)"effort" seems to imply that their reputations will suffice in place of familiarity with the literatures of the central subjects on which they pontificate.They (ab)use well-established, still very much germane, concepts without regard to current usages by both mainstream and critical theory-grounded writers.It is as though they had invented their subjects yesterday:they make little effort to relate their comments to either the empirical or theoretical scholarship.The consequence should be treating this little volume the way its authors treat the bodies of relevant work on the theme they address; unfortunately a few persons may be sufficiently motivated by the names on the title-page to buy the book. Given its thin and airy (vacuous would not be too strong)content, however, is likely to be quickly forgotten.It fails to contribute to intellectual discourse

Poorly edited scholarly effort
I have to second the previous reviewer's negative comments -- it accurately assesses the substantive shortcomings of this book -- and add my own 2 cents (and 2 stars) worth about some additional problems.The text is a apparently a transcript of a conference or panel discussion between Butler and Spivak, with some questions from audience members at the end of their exchange, but there is absolutely no introduction or even a brief statement to contextualize their statements.Was this in fact a conference or panel discussion?If so, where, and what was the conference title or topic?Without any of that information the reader is projected into the middle of a conversation without any explanation.It makes it hard to get one's bearings, and as the previous reviewer argues, there isn't much of substance to hang on to as you make your way through the book.Very disappointing effort from Spivak and Butler, as well as the editor/publisher of this book.

Simulacra Scholarship
It is surely a reflection of the demand for the Latest on globalization and the nation-state from highly commodified theorists that this super-slender hardcover volume (with approx. 120 words per page) hit a sales rank consistently below 5,000 on Amazon.com for weeks prior to its release. The scandal is that neither Butler nor Spivak have an in-depth knowledge of globalization or nationalism, but their comments and sound-bytes will soon be the most widely cited on these topics. Their iconic status as all-purpose references is built on a simulacra of scholarship that depends on two factors: 1) an audience that is unwilling to do the in-depth reading to understand globalization but wants sound-bytes to stay current and relevant and 2) the license granted to some celebrity scholars to comment on subjects well beyond their expertise.

Butler comes up with the astonishing claim (p. 13) that hardly anyone writes about statelessness in the social sciences now (what has she been reading?!); and Spivak tops this with her declaration (p. 87) that "the European constitution is an economic document" (what happened to the articles on secularism, militarism, and human rights).In a revealing exchange, when Butler asks Spivak to clarify what she means by critical regionalism, Spivak careens from Evo Morales to East Asia to South Asia to Habermas, to undocumented workers in the United States, to Iran, to NATO, to Russia in 5 pages to make the wafer-thin conclusion: "It [critical regionalism] goes under and over nationalisms but keeps the abstract structures of something like a state." No other scholar would be allowed to hang an argument on this flimsy peg, but she can and does. Spivak dodges every call to define her terms or offer a sustained argument. Along the way, she tosses up terms like "critical regionalism" "sustainable exploitation" (when has exploitation not tried to be sustainable) which will soon be the buzzwords of the moment. Needless to say, there is a large body of work produced about the refigured regionalisms in Latin America, Asia, and Africa (often by scholars working in institutions in these regions) that makes Spivak seem superficial and glib. Indeed, the argument for regional human rights instruments has been made at least since the First World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, but of course this becomes citable only when it comes from a Spivak. The irony is that in humanities departments, it will be the Spivakisms that will circulate, while the other work will be strenuously ignored. To think that it was Spivak who first charged her interlocutors with "sanctioned ignorance."
... Read more

Book Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A poststrcuturalist deconstruction of Freud
My initial reaction to reading Bodies that Matter by Judith Butler is that she writes from a very unique perspective and theoretical standpoint: post-structuralism. While she maybe considered one of the foremost theorists on gender and feminism, I find her writings extremely difficult to follow. She presents key concepts readily but in a langue that is indicative of the post-structuralist perspective, convoluted and overly wordy.More often than not I found myself loosing focus and having to reread numerous passages just to maintain basic understanding.
If language, as Butler suggests, is confined by the language used (Butler 91: 1993) then Butler is caged. Her critical deconstruction of Freud, which is the main focus of the text, is enlightening but far too complex within the language used for the critique.The concepts of Freudian psychology are not that difficult to understand when presented in a fashion that lends itself to understanding. Many of his theories are paramount to understanding basic anthropological concepts, not to mention human psychology.

Lacanian response
When I first read this book, I was pleased to see that Butler was returning to the problem of "gender performativity" she raised in *Gender Trouble.*I do believe that she was misunderstood as having claimed in *Gender Trouble* that the performativity constitutive of gender implies an infinite "plasticity" or freedom from the constraints of gender. Yet after reading *Bodies,* I felt that she evaded the question with which she opened the book:in what way can the "materiality" of anatomical sex be construed as a "discursive limit" to ideological constructions of gender without being understood as existing outside of discourse?I believe that Butler is ultimately indecisive about the status of the materiality of sex as either a pre- or extra-discursive "hard kernel of the Real" or (just like gender) another aspect of discourse.This is what leads to her very wrong-headed "critique" of the concept of "objet petit a" in the work of Slavoj Zizek and Jacques Lacan, very complex work which she oversimplifies and accuses of "reifying" or "essentializing" sex.Any serious student of Lacan knows that the a-object of fantasy is anything but "essential."It phantasmatically "dresses up" (to use Lacan's words in Seminar 14) a primordial psychic "hole," an *absence* or pure negativity where a "grounding" for discourse ought to be but is *lacking.* It's a shame that a book such as this which begins with a rigorous intellectual question degenerates into a sort of psychoanalytic dilettantism.

Major work from a major thinker that doesn't quite convince
The best thing about Judith Butler is that she is always willing to think through the consequences of her earlier writings. This book was a response to the criticism that emerged out of the groundbreaking conclusion to GENDER TROUBLE that argued for an understanding of gender as performative. Critics took Butler to task for arguing that gender is something that is simply an act of performative volition - one can "be" whatever one wants to be - irrespective of the materiality of the body. Here, Butler turns the tables (in a neat deconstructive move) by showing how this criticism presupposes the a priori existence of "bodies" and "matter" separate from discourse. Yet, after a brilliant introduction, the book becomes weighted down by its own psychoanalytic presuppositions and its tediously dense prose style. There is often no reason for Butler's writing to be as incomprehensible as it is, especially given the giant claims she's making about the nature of gender (other than to "perform" her writing's own indebtedness to Lacanian psychoanalysis and Althusserian critique).

Moreover, her work has been rightly faulted (partiucularly by Martha Nussbaum) by holding out an ideal of "subversion" that is something (in the terms of how she frames it) that ultimately DOES have very little to do with the ways sexual inequality is experienced outside of a somewhat narrow bourgeois American academic purview. But, finally, given the indisputable pervasiveness of Butler's ideas within the academy and without it (particularly in the ways in which sexuality is viewed today), the work is clearly a seminal text nonetheless.

colossal hybris
This book drove me almost entirely insane.The essay if you can call it that on the film Paris is Burning is simply incendiary to any person with a trace element of logic in their scalp.This essay argues that Venus Extravaganza was murdered for having been a transvestite.In the film itself it says she/he is killed -- but what the NYPD cannot solve Butler solves in the twinkling of a phrase -- she claims he/she is erased for playing with the sexual line.Not for burning a customer, or for simply being in a dangerous business.Whores are wiped out all day and night for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.Ever hear of the Green River Killer?Still Butler knows the motive.She just invents anything she wants, and calls it truth.She actually infers that anybody has the right to invent their own reality, and everybody else has to honor this reality.Only an extremely stupid person who has never had to work for a living could keep such a dumb idea down without puking.Do you mean if I think I'm a millionaire and walk into a bank, they will give me a million dollars?Do you mean if I have cellulite all over my legs and breasts that I can be a top model, I just have to really believe it?Do you mean that if I think I'm a genius, then others will agree?Feminist academics who've never worked, but who love to dramatize their own victimization, will love this book.Everybody else will simply puke from laughing so hard.

what?
I would have to agree with the reader that said this book was completely incomprehensible! ... Read more

Book Description
"A book that shines with the splendor of engaged thought."—The Brooklyn Rail

Judith Butler is one of America's most daring and vibrant thinkers. In this profound appraisal of post-September 11th America, now with a new foreword, Judith Butler considers the conditions of heightened fear and aggression that followed the attack on the Twin Towers, and the US government's decision to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. She critiques this use of violence as a response to loss and grief, and argues that the vulnerability the West now feels offers a chance to imagine a world without violence, a world where the interdependency of peoples and nations becomes the basis for a global political community.

Through five impassioned and personal essays, Butler responds to the current US policies to wage perpetual war, and calls for a deeper understanding of how mourning and violence might instead inspire solidarity and a quest for global justice. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Provocative book
I read this book yesterday and just ate it up. It's not the usual esoteric examination by Butler. (Not that anything is wrong with that and I've read her other work, as well).

That said, the book is written for a lay audience and I think that this book needed to be published, since the responses of feminists to or after Sept 11th have been far and few. (Aftershock is a great book to read about Sept 11th from a feminist point of view).

I can't pinpoint what my favourite section of the book was, however, I enjoyed it all. It was refreshing to see a political theorist write about something "real" that is taking place today that many are discussing or living through.

This is a wonderful addition to her writing repertoire. I do hope to see her write more for a lay audience, since hopefully they will get their curiosity piqued and read more Butler.

Another Other
Judith Butler is out of her depth in her discussions of Israel,
and (the new) anti-semitism.Readers searching for understanding of post-9/11 politics will encounter lopsided arguments here.

Excellent social commentary
Judith Butler is a multi-talented scholar who can write for both specialized and general audiences (which is why many, I believe, envy her).This book is quite accessible and rightly so; it is concerned with the contemporary predicaments we are currently in at this point in history.An extremely important book, Butler's "Precarious Life" has much to offer.

The only Judith Butler book
I thought Precarious Life was great.Her previous work always sounded like a dreary parody of "postmodern criticism" to me, and I couldn't be bothered trying to slog through any of it.She's obviously going for a wider audience with this new one.It's working.

Nothing new
I had much anticipation of Butler's _Precarious Lives_ considering her position as one of the foremost cultural and literary theorists.However, I was highly disappointed that the arguments she makes in the text are no greater than those of most academics, including those of grad students.I'd wait for the paperback edition and buy it used as it is somewhat useful for citations.Other than that, the argument is really over-stated these days and seems like much less than what one could or "should" expect from Butler. ... Read more

Book Description
Undoing Gender constitutes Judith Butler's recent reflections on gender and sexuality, focusing on new kinship, psychoanalysis and the incest taboo, transgender, intersex, diagnostic categories, social violence, and the tasks of social transformation. In terms that draw from feminist and queer theory, Butler considers the norms that govern--and fail to govern--gender and sexuality as they relate to the constraints on recognizable personhood. The book constitutes a reconsideration of her earlier view on gender performativity from Gender Trouble. In this work, the critique of gender norms is clearly situated within the framework of human persistence and survival. And to "do" one's gender in certain ways sometimes implies "undoing" dominant notions of personhood. She writes about the "New Gender Politics" that has emerged in recent years, a combination of movements concerned with transgender, transsexuality, intersex, and their complex relations to feminist and queer theory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Living Livable Life
Butler, Judith. "Undoing Gender, Routledge, 2004.

Living Livable Life

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

Judith Butler's "Undoing Gender" is a much easier book to read than "Gender Trouble" and it gives us a great deal of food for thought. The book is a rather provocative look of the normative structure of gender and how those who do not fit into the "traditional" gender binary of male/female are able to have lives of livability. The book is accessible and it continues where "Gender Trouble" stopped. In showing how gender affects people but without ideas to do to change our opinions about gender--these are left to the reader.
Butler shows her intelligence and sometimes this does not make for an easy read. However, her language is clear. This is a book that demands careful thought and consideration.Scholars who study gender should be aware of what gender is all about more than the average person and that, in my mind, is what this book seeks to do. We have the right of gender expression as protected by our rights as humans and the same can be said of sexual orientation.
"Undoing Gender" is a great place to start for anyone interested in post-structuralism.But a word of warning--you must be ready to take time and effort to read Butler.

Judith Butler discusses gender through a philosophic lens
First things first, Judith Butler is scary smart. Her linguist/philosopher credentials can make her a tough read sometimes, but the language she uses here is clear and pure. Undoing Gender provided the first insights into the gendered connections that we all share and how the world understands us through these labels. She connects Foucault to Simone de Beauvoir, Hegel, Freud and beyond. I very much appreciated the depths that Undoing Gender plumbed to connect my experience to everyone else's, and to our common history and struggle. I tend to hightlight and annotate books that I use as reference and this copy is dripping yellow, pink, blue and green.

Generally excellent, but with a serious flaw...
"Undoing Gender" is a dense and scholarly tome which demands careful consideration and perhaps repeated readings to fully appreciate. I would give it five stars but for Chapter Three where I found Professor Butler's focus on the David Reimer case a somewhat superficial rehash of what has already been written, lacking in the critical analysis Butler uses to excellent effect elsewhere throughout her work.

On the famous case of David Reimer, whose penis was burned completely off during a botched circumcision when he was eight months old, Professor Butler writes:

"David was born with XY chromosomes and at the age of eight months, his penis was accidentally burned and severed in the course of a surgical operation to rectify phimosis, a condition in which the foreskin thwarts urination. This is a relatively risk-free procedure but the doctor who performed it on David was using a new machine, apparently one that he hadn't used before, one that his colleagues declared was unnecessary for the job."

Judith Butler reports elements of David's tragic story, complete with the errors and embellishments so often repeated.

Phimosis is a condition of tightness of the foreskin preventing retraction over the glans, but it does not prevent or thwart urination. Phimosis is a natural condition of the developing infant penis, in many cases retraction of the foreskin is not possible until well into childhood or later. Jean-Marie Huot, the so-called doctor who destroyed David's penis, diagnosed both David and his twin brother Brian with phimosis, though after the accident with David, Brian was left genitally intact and his condition of phimosis cleared up naturally as it does with almost all intact males, showing the error of Hout's "diagnosis" and "treatment."

Butler's statement that circumcision "is a relatively risk-free procedure", spoken in the context of David's case is (to say the least) a serious and undoubtedly harmful understatement. The damages from circumcision are all too often unrecognized and underreported, no doubt in a conscious or subconscious effort to avoid challenging the status quo. Even with severe circumcision damage as happened to David many of the mainstream publications reporting his story refrained from mentioning circumcision as the cause of the damage; several only stated, "the baby lost his penis in an accident" shifting blame from the mutilator to the baby! David's story challenges society to take off its cultural blinkers and look at circumcision for what it is, even if some wish to believe such casualities are acceptable.

David's case is world famous and has been used by many to advance theories of gender. John Money used David's case to advance his theory that gender is imposed after birth. Once David found out about his past and proclaimed his maleness, others have followed with a different tact, using him to suggest that gender is innate. Here in Canada where David's life took place there is another not-so-famous case of another child born male, whose penis was also destroyed in a botched circumcision and raised female. She, now an adult, has been reported in the medical literature as being well adjusted to her female gender role, yet is rarely referred to in the mainstream discourse on gender. Perhaps if her story becomes public she will reveal other subtleties we have yet to understand.

Gender scholars should recognize that we cannot seriously and comprehensively discuss sexuality and gender if the dynamics around genital reducing surgery (circumcision) performed "routinely" on infants is not included in the scope of this discussion. A society which condones genital mutilation of infants and children and sweeps the casualties under the rug is asking for some serious scrutiny. Professor Butler refers in her footnotes to the chapter on David Reimer, to a videotape on the ethics of sex reassignment of children, yet doesn't mention the impact to society or the ethics of performing "routine" genital reducing surgery on infant males.

In a latter chapter Professor Butler delightfully acknowledges her sexuality as lesbian and her heritage as Jewish. With these credentials she could turn her brilliant analysis of gender more squarely on the issue of circumcision and perhaps reveal some as yet unknown aspects of the dynamics around this issue. Other scholars have paved the way, notably historian and physician Leonard Glick with his groundbreaking book, "Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America" and Jewish feminist Miriam Pollock in her heartfelt essay, "Redefining the Sacred" in the book "Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy." Also recommended is Ron Goldman's book, "Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective" and "Male & Female Circumcision: Among Jews, Christians and Muslims, Religious, Medical Social and Legal Debate", by Sami Awad Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh. These excellent books are available through Amazon.

"Undoing Gender" will not be the last book to focus on David Reimer's famous and tragic life. I sincerely hope the next person to write about David will put his case in context and look long, hard and honestly at what happened to him and place blame where it squarely belongs in an effort to keep this from ever happening again. All children have an inherent human right to have their genital integrity protected; their freedom of gender expression and sexual orientation as well.

It's good, but not her best
While "Undoing Gender" is one of Judith Butler's most accessible texts (in that one does not need to have a philosophical companion and an OED on hand to read it), I did find many of the essays to not be as well developed as others she has written.Many of the essays seem to be half-completed, lacking some substance.While I do think that "Undoing Gender" is a good start for someone interested in post-structuralism, I would recommend that one really take the time and effort to read some of her more well thought out books like "Bodies That Matter" or "Gender Trouble" -- which might require additional reading of Derrida, Foucault, Freud and Lacan to really get the fullness of the texts.

Doing... undoing...
`Undoing Gender' is certainly a much easier read than 'Gender Trouble' and 'Bodies That Matter'. However, it still presents thoughtful reflections relevant to Butler's earlier work. It's so gloomy to read multiple texts by the same author (especially in the academic field) and find they all explore the same viewpoint- that's why it is really refreshing to read Butler's work in succession to witness the 'redoing' of ideas. Butler's up to date frameworks are especially relevant in the forever changing realm of gender.
However, in reading Butler's work I find it necessary to consult a whole heap of other titles, including work by Freud, Foucault, Lacan. Keep this in mind... it's not a light read! Consider it more a starting point. ... Read more

Book Description
With the publication of her highly acclaimed and much-cited book Gender Trouble, Judith Butler became one of the most influential feminist theorists of her generation. Her theory of gender performativity and her writings on corporeality, on the injurious capacity of language, on the vulnerability of human life to violence and on the impact of mourning on politics have, taken together, comprised a substantial and highly original body of work that has a wide and truly cross-disciplinary appeal.

In this lively book, Moya Lloyd provides both a clear exposition and an original critique of Butler's work. She examines Butlers core ideas, traces the development of her thought from her first book to her most recent work, and assesses Butlers engagements with the philosophies of Hegel, Foucault, Derrida, Irigaray and de Beauvoir, as well as addressing the nature and impact of Butler's writing on feminist theory. Throughout Lloyd is particularly concerned to examine Butler's political theory, including her critical interventions in such contemporary political controversies as those surrounding gay marriage, hate-speech, human rights, and September 11 and its aftermath.

Judith Butler offers an accessible and original contribution to existing debates that will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike. ... Read more

Book Description

-- Allan Stoekl,Annals of Scholarship

Customer Reviews (1)

Hegel in France
Judith Butler, who is nowadays best known for her theory of "performative" gender differenciation, wrote her thesis about the reception of Hegel's philosophy in France. The book is not an exhaustive overview of Hegelian reflections as they appeared, in various forms, in the twentieth century France, but it certainly does include the most important of them (except for Georges Bataille, whose version of Hegelianism is not mentioned in the book, but in her new preface, Judith Butler herself admits this absence). In the first part of the book, Butler deals with Kojeve's and Hyppolite's interpretations of Hegel's Phenomenology, while the second part is concerned with Sartre, Lacan, Foucault and Deleuze. Even though the book doesn't bring anything new to those who are already familiar with the work of the thinkers mentioned above, it may be read as an extremely clear and concise introduction to the French Hegelianism. ... Read more

Book Description
A welcome addition to the Routledge Critical Thinkers series, Judith Butler is the first guidebook on this renowned feminist and queer theory scholar, which will help not only students of literary criticism but also students of law, sociology, philosophy, film and cultural studies. Examining Butler's work through a variety of contexts, including the formation of gender performativity, identity and subjecthood, Sarah Salih address Butler's crucial ideas on the gender agenda, the body, pornography, race, gay self-expression and power and psychoanalysis. Concluding with an annotated bibliography, this book will be the ideal starting point for all new to Butler. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Coming to [t]erms with Butler
Sara Salih has written a wonderfully concise and at times illuminating introduction to one of the key thinkers of post-structuralist feminism, queer theory, and gender studies. Salih dissects Butlers work energetically - moving from `gender performativity' to `femininity', `language', `the psyche' and so on. Sara is clearly an expert when it comes to Butler and this mastery articulates itself in very concise and accessible language which ultimately benefits the reader. Salih's only failing is her seemingly uncritical stance towards Butler, which at times comes across as dogmatic (especially when she's defending Butler's ridiculous, at times unreasonably esoteric writing). This however shouldn't deter anyone from reading this otherwise excellent introduction.

- 9/10 Another excellent Routledge introduction ... Read more

Book Description
"For several years," write the editors of What's Left of Theory, "a debate on the politics of theory has been conducted energetically within literary studies. The terms of the debate, however, are far from clear.What is meant by politics? What is meant by theory?"

What's Left of Theory is a vigorous engagement with that thorniest of critical questions: how today are theory and progressive thought connected? Michael Warner, activist and critic, examines 'zones of privacy and zones of theory' while law professor Janet Halley considers theory and its applicability to sex harassment. Jeff Nunokawa examines Oscar Wilde, Marjorie Levinson reads Elizabeth Bishop alongside National Geographic; John Brenkman considers 'extreme criticism', Michael Berube the 'future of contingency'; William Connolly addresses the matter of secularism, Gayatri Spivak explores what she calls 'theory-remains', and Jonathan Culler demonstrates once again his gift for explaining the complex in an essay that identifies 'the literary in theory'.

Editors Butler, Guillory, and Thomas have brought together not only outstanding questioners, but outstanding questions. As their introduction puts it, "Are there ways of pursuing a politically reflective literary analysis that have definitively left theory behind, and must 'theory' be left behind for left literary analysis to emerge? Has the study of literature passed beyond its encounter with theory? If so, in passing beyond theory, has it remained unchanged? Does the recent cry for a 'return to literature' signal the surpassing of theory, the fact that literature remains after theory? Does literature remain (the same) after theory?" For students of literature and the humanities in general, these questions are not only left: they endure.
... Read more

Amazon.com
Judith Butler's writing has become a cornerstone of queer theory. In Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex, she drew upon Freud, Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan to explore the connections between sex, politics, and identity, and The Psychic Life of Power continues her inquiry into these ideas. While she revisits, and revises, some of her earlier thoughts--such as her theory of gender as performance--she breaks much new ground here. Using Hegel and Nietzsche (as well as a critique of psychoanalysis) for theoretical support, Butler probes how the idea of "subjection"--to become a subject, to have a consciousness--interfaces with having a gay or lesbian identity. Discussing such topics as drag, gays-in-the-military, and AIDS to illustrate her ideas, Butler manages to locate her philosophical theories in a concrete world, and although her earlier work could sometimes be as dense as it was rewarding, The Psychic Life of Power is lucid and highly readable. --Michael BronskiBook Description

Customer Reviews (5)

Overrated, Outdated and Mostly a Waste of Time
Are you a man who is attracted to women?Did you know why?It's because when you were an infant, you wanted to have sex with other men but your parents told you not to.Then you wanted to have sex with your own mother, but your parents forbid you to do that as well.So, unable to HAVE your objects of desire, you have to BECOME your father (the first one you were forbidden to have) so that one day you will get to HAVE your mother.Or...a suitable stand in for her.

Yes, this is psychoanalysis at its best, which is about as good as doing a few Tarot card readings as a means of gaining greater insight into human development.Butler seems stuck on the theories of Freud which have long ago been disproven by scientists around the world.In her world, there are no people, only objects of sexual desire.There is no human connection, no love and no common sense.It is ashame that this is required reading in some humanities departments these days.If you can get through this without falling over laughing then you either have no sense of humor or are afraid to upset the academic powers that be who have dubbed Butler worth reading.I choose to keep on laughing.

Butler Par Excellence
This Butler is her best yet. It is imaginative, provocative, and excellently argues. She moves through a number of theories and discourses including Althusser, Freudian psychoanalysis, Foucault, and Hegel in order to argue out a VERY important concept: passionate attachments. This concept of Butler's represents a major intervention and contribution for radical politics. The basic idea is the subjects becomes attached to the conditions of their own subjectivity EVEN if these conditions are oppressive one. Very interesting and suggestive point. This book is well worth the buy just to see how Butler will argue this point out. If I have one criticism of Butler is that her discussion ultimately resonates with a number of Lacanian concepts, but she still maintains her skeptical distance from Lacan--these Lacanian criticisms can be found in Zizek's excellent "The Ticklish Subject."

Psyche Meets Subject
I've read this book three times in the past several months in preparation for giving a talk on post-structural perspectives on early childhood gender and sexual development in psychoanalysis.As always, I find the effort it takes to understand Butler's writing to pay off richly in the brilliance of her arguments.In particular, I was drawn to two sections in this book: the first a reconsidering of who it is that turns to become a subject in Althusser's model of interpellation, and the second an exchange of papers with psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in which both grapple with how her work might be informed by psychoanalytic practice and the practice might be informed by her work.Having read this book both prior to and after immersing myself in Freud, Lacan and some of their major commentators, I found that I got far more out of Butler's book with a stronger background in the language and assumptions of psychoanalysis.

The Paradox of Subjection
In *The Psychic Life of Power* Judith Butler provides a critical inquiry into the process of subject formation that reveals the self-conscious subject as necessary paradox. Her main argument is that the emergence of the subject depends on subjection to power and yet the subject that is inaugurated exceeds this power, because subjection can never fully totalize the subject. In order to elaborate her theoretical movements Butler draws on Hegel, Nietzsche, Foucault, Althusser, and Freud. The main metaphors for understanding the works of subjection are the turning of the subject on itself and the interpellation of the subject by the other. Consciousness and desire function as guiding categories for the analysis. Taking on the much discussed question of the possibility of agency Butler shows that the normalizing effect of social norms always produces an inassimilable remainder in the subject from where resistance against those norms becomes possible. *The Psychic Life of Power* provides a very powerful rethinking of the question of subjectivity and self-consciousness, even though - or maybe because of - the individual chapters' appearance as separate essays. In the introduction, however, Butler reveals how the various explorations all fit together in her thinking. A new stage of Butlerian lucidity - in and on Butlerian terms, though.

A Continuation of Thoughts on Subjectivity
This is a contituation from her earlier publications, "Gender Trouble," "Bodies That Matter." Those who read these two texts would find this book extremely interesting. Butler seems to move her theorization of subjectivity from the materiality of the body (in previous texts) to the psychic realm of subjectivity. Please note that this is NOT a reflection of Cartesian dichotomy of mind/body. Rather, I understand her move as strategic choice, in order to deepen her analysis of power and its relation to psychic realm, before delving into the inextricable reality of psyche and body.Here Butler draws on the works of various philosophers, such as Hegel, Althusser,Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault and so on, to explicate the complex process through which power engenders a psychic form (see intro), and constitutes a self. As always, her eloquent rhetorical style and brilliant epistemological turns are amazing enough. ... Read more

Book Description

The celebrated author ofGender Trouble here redefines Antigone's legacy, recovering her revolutionary significance and liberating it for a progressive feminism and sexual politics. Butler's new interpretation does nothing less than reconceptualize the incest taboo in relation to kinship -- and open up the concept of kinship to cultural change.

Antigone, the renowned insurgent from Sophocles'sOedipus, has long been a feminist icon of defiance. But what has remained unclear is whether she escapes from the forms of power that she opposes. Antigone proves to be a more ambivalent figure for feminism than has been acknowledged, since the form of defiance she exemplifies also leads to her death. Butler argues that Antigone represents a form of feminist and sexual agency that is fraught with risk. Moreover, Antigone shows how the constraints of normative kinship unfairly decide what will and will not be a livable life.

Butler explores the meaning of Antigone, wondering what forms of kinship might have allowed her to live. Along the way, she considers the works of such philosophers as Hegel, Lacan, and Irigaray. How, she asks, would psychoanalysis have been different if it had taken Antigone -- the "postoedipal" subject -- rather than Oedipus as its point of departure? If the incest taboo is reconceived so that it does not mandate heterosexuality as its solution, what forms of sexual alliance and new kinship might be acknowledged as a result? The book relates the courageous deeds of Antigone to the claims made by those whose relations are still not honored as those of proper kinship, showing how a culture of normative heterosexuality obstructs our capacity to see what sexual freedom and political agency could be.

Customer Reviews (10)

Must Like Hegel & Lacan
I haven't finished this extremely short text yet.It was originally a small series of lectures.Basically, Butler critiques Hegel's and Lacan's appropriations of Antigone (both the play and, especially, the character) to represent a certain ideal.She summarizes rather lucidly both Hegel's and Lacan's positions.Of course, the problem with both Hegel and Lacan is that they are so dense and (often) obscure that, like Nietzsche, they get appropriated left and right themselves.So understanding what they *really* ever meant is always slippery.But Hegel and Lacan are familiar territory for Butler.She's no Classicist, and she's upfront about that.I think she does a phenomenal job highlighting the ultimately untenable postion(s) Hegel and, to a lesser extent, Lacan assume in relation to Antigone.I haven't finish yet, but Butler is certainly setting up her own "feminist" reading.It's not concerned with "what the Greeks thought" the way classical scholars (by definition) often are.Rather, she's clearly relating Greek tragedy to the modern world in response to the past 300 years of (post)enlightenment thinking.A more recent text that also deals with a lot of this material is The Antigone Complex by Cecilia Sjoholm - if you're interested.

very intelligent, ground-breaking book!!!
Judith Butler's study of Antigone, over the course of these 3 lectures, yields important and timely insights about how we might understand kinship and love in today's society. Her analysis of Hegel, Levi-Strauss, and Lacan is impressively rigorous. A must read for anyone interested in liguistics, structuralism, feminism and contemporary questions about political belonging.

Does this woman know any Greek?
I have located several misquotations and several mispellings of what little Greek she uses. Apart from it being gruesomely written, I suspect this woman does not know Antigone in Greek--she quotes widely from other sources but prefers to stay away from the original. I am tempted to at a later date say with Voltaire "I am sitting in the smallest room of the house. I have your book in front of me--soon it will be behind me"

Butler (Miss Butler if ur nasty) is at is again...
Judging from the reader reviews on this website, Judith Butler has yet again succeeded in provoking the outrage of several diehard and blue-in-the-face classics scholars. Those classicists who feel outraged by her work might consider her illuliminating comments on Hölderlin's own translation of Antigone, translations that themselves were received as scandals in their time and that continue, like Antigone in Butler's view, to provoke critical thought. If you think Antigone belongs on the shelves of a dusty library, you might as well leave this book alone, since here she's haunting queer bars and dining at the most interesting and vital family meals imaginable, where queer sons and daughters struggle together with their just as queer parents to figure out how it is that we might say our word to a world that persists in ignoring what it is that we have to say.

Very interesting book
Some of the previous reviewers' responses to this book might give an idea of what's so interesting and provocative about it, and about Butler's work overall.Even if you're not a classicist with too much time on your hands. ... Read more

Book Description
In a compelling and unusual experiment, three eminent theorists engage in a dialogue on central questions of contemporary philosophy and politics. Their essays, organized as separate contributions that respond to one another, range over the Hegelian legacy in contemporary critical theory, the theoretical dilemmas of multiculturalism, the universalism-versus-particularism debate, the strategies of the Left in a globalized economy, and the relative merits of post-structuralism and Lacanian psychoanalysis for a critical social theory.While the rigor and intelligence with which these writers approach their work is formidable, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality benefits additionally from their clear sense of energy and enjoyment in a revealing and often unpredictable exchange. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Weird
Very strange book--courageous, but disappointing in many ways.Butler tries throughout to get the others to think of gays/lesbians as something more than examples of minorities--they refuse.Laclau's second essay is positively bitchy and contemptuous.Zizek presses the other two to be more active activists and take a more positive political stance--they do not do so, instead noting that he also does not do so.Laclau says he assumed Zizek had a sophisticated political sense when he entered the collaboration but must conclude that he was wrong--Zizek is politically stupid, and Butler is a ranting, ravingdyke--or so Laclau implies by referring to her first essay as a "war machine" or something.(She of course does not lower herself by responding.)It's an intersting collaboration in many ways--what I got out of it mainly was a better understanding of hegemony, which seems to me an incredibly powerful concept.But it comes mainly, I gather, from Laclau's earlier work.Butler, I thought, asked some good questions about universality that are ignored throughout the rest of the volume, as are all her remarks about gender, which seem invisible to the others.She writes beautifully at times.Laclau's thinking is incisive and powerful.Zizek seems to flip-flop wantonly on Derrida, and they all bicker constantly about who is and who isn't interpreting Lacan's Real with adequate thoroughness.It's a strangely confused, confusing, and inconclusive book.(The attempt, at the end, to present the failure to conclude anything as a theoretical triumph is a bit hollow.)It shows the state of theory now, I guess--theory is seductive in its power and potential, but three theorists of the Left seem unable to talk to each other.My own view is that theory can underestimate the power of disciplinary barriers."Theory" seems to me to be nothing if not a way for a rhetorician, an economist, and a psychoanalyst/film critic to talk to each other, but the forces against such collaboration are not to be so easily thwarted, unfortunately.The book is interesting but naive.

worth the effort
Yes this is a difficult book, but it is an absolute must read for those who are follwing the theoretical developments of post-strucuralism on the progressive left.Of course there are no prescriptions for immediate action but read Butler's contributions in this book and she addresses that dilemma.Laclau is very good, and Zizek has nuggets, but his Hegelian/Lacanianism is showing signs of wear and doesn't offer the opportunities for further theoretical developments and even research projects that the projects of Butler and Laclau offer.

better than most...
This book represents an attempt by (the) three social thinkers of our time to bring their differing views of what is to done together by beginning with what it is that they have in common, namely: Marx (and Gramsci), Lacan, and Derrida.Although all three critique the above figures, they could not do what it is they do with them.This book provides a much needed companion to Laclau's (w/ Mouffe) "Hegemony and Socialist Strategy" and Zizek's "Ticklish Subject".It also helps towards Butler's "Gender Trouble" but I feel that her approach has matured a great deal from that mostly obscure book.Zizek and Laclau are on their game and their detailed responses back and forth really help in understanding what is at stake.I like Butler but it seems that she is out of her league and element.That being said, Ithink that there are nuggets of greatness in her writings, one just has to look extra hard to find them.My only criticism for Zizek is that sometimes his examples skew to the shallow side, but this negative is overcome with the remainder of his work.

Difficult
A difficult book to read.It is composed of interrelated essays and brings poststructuralist analysis of the current political situation to the fore.Very good for scholars dealing with the desection of the postmodern but offers little advice to those struggling for a better life.

Not my favorite book
I have many criticisms to make about this book, but I will limit myself to the following points. Although Zizek makes an effort to be understood, Laclau and Butler compete for showing who is more obscure and pedantic. In spite all the apparent erudition of the authors, or rather because of it, the issue of hegemony is not well-focused. Certainly Gramsci was quite concerned about providing a philosophical dimension to his social reflection, but Laclau, Butler and, to a lesser extend Zizek, bury the social reflection under tons of excessive philosophical references. The lack of sociological dimension is particularly noticeable regarding Laclau's discussion of contigency. The blending of Kant, Hegel, Lacan, Saussure, to mention the main characters, is simply theoretical over-killing. It will take an article to show how shaky the theoretical connetion between hegemony and universalism is. It is my impression that Gramsci would not recognize his work in this academic potpourri. I bought the book, read carefully from cover to cover, and I strongly dislike it. ... Read more

Book Description

How has Judith Butlers writing contributed to thought in the Social Sciences and the Humanities? The participants in this project draw on various aspects of Butlers conceptual work and they question how it has opened up the possibilities of thought in areas of study as diverse as Theater Studies, Education, and Narrative Therapy.

In a format that demands careful listening and response, the scholars in this book interact with Butler and with her writing, and they interact with each other. Within this dynamic interactive space they take up Butlers body of work and they carry it in new and exciting directions. Their conversations and writing are, in turn, funny, exciting, surprising and moving.

Book Description
In chess, when a pawn reaches the eighth square on the far side of the board, the player can swap it for a piece from his opponent's set. So the pawn--a lowly foot soldier--can transform into a queen, the least powerful figure can transform into the epitome of power, and a man can become a woman--just like that. Issues of sexuality are playing out around us all the time, quaking and transmuting under the surface of every family exchange and embedded in all of our popular media images. This scholarly and yet still erotic compendium examines, through works by more than 70 artists, historical and social developments in human sexuality, taking on all facets of drag, gender, queerness and transsexuality. Artists include Diane Arbus, Francis Bacon, Matthew Barney, Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tracey Moffatt, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rauschenberg and Cindy Sherman. ... Read more

Book Description
A collection of work by leading feminist scholars, engaging with the question of the political status of poststructuralism within feminism, and affirming the contemporary debate over theory as politically rich and consequential. ... Read more

Book Description
Moral philosophy and poststructuralism have long been considered two antithetical enterprises. Moral philosophy is invested in securing norms, whereas poststructuralism attempts to unclench the grip of norms on our lives. Moreover, poststructuralism is often suspected of undoing the possibility of ethical knowledge by emphasizing the unstable, socially constructed nature of our practices and knowledge. In Unbecoming Subjects, Annika Thiem argues that Judith Butler's work makes possible a productive encounter between moral philosophy and poststructuralism, rethinking responsibility and critique as key concepts at the juncture of ethics and politics. Putting into conversation Butler's earlier and most recent work, Unbecoming Subjects begins by examining how Butler's critique of the subject as nontransparent to itself, formed thoroughly through relations of power and in subjection to norms and social practices, poses a challenge to ethics and ethical agency. The book argues, in conversation with Butler, Levinas, and Laplanche, that responsibility becomes possible only when we do not know what to do or how to respond, yet find ourselves under a demand to respond, and even more, to respond well to others. Drawing on the work of Butler, Adorno, and Foucault, Unbecoming Subjects examines critique as a central practice for moral philosophy. It interrogates the limits of moral and political knowledge and probes methods of social criticism to uncover and oppose injustices. ... Read more