Judith Butler

Hannah Arendt Chair and Professor of Philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS.

Biography

Judith Butler (b. 1956) holds the Hannah Arendt Chair at The European Graduate School / EGS and is the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a philosopher and one of the most challenging thinkers of our time. She rose to prominence in 1990 with Gender Trouble, which caused an unexpected stir as it unearthed foundational assumptions both in philosophy and in feminist theory, namely the facticity of sex. Controversial debate on the subject(s) extended far beyond academia to which Butler responded, in part, in Bodies that Matter(1993). Butler’s academic rigor is pursued through innovative and critical readings of a wide range of texts in philosophy, psychoanalysis and literature, challenging the confines of disciplinary thinking. Within, and beyond that, Judith Butler is also known for her critical voice in socio-political discourse and debate. Her qualities as a thinker are reflected in her openness to what is at stake in the present and in her passionate engagement in conversations with contemporaries in and outside academia.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Butler was raised in a Jewish family and according to her own words, was initiated into philosophical thinking at the age of fourteen by a rabbi from her local synagogue. She attended Bennington College and then Yale University, which included a Fulbright Scholarship to Heidelberg University in 1979. In 1984, she received her PhD in philosophy from Yale University. Her philosophical training was primarily in German Idealism, phenomenology, and the work of the Frankfurt School. The turn towards post-structuralism, to which her work is considered to make a significant contribution, followed her PhD.

Judith Butler taught at Wesleyan University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, and Columbia University and was appointed the Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley in 1998. An incomplete listing of her works includes: Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France (1987), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex” (1993), The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection (1997), Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (1997), Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (2000), Undoing Gender (2004), Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence (2004), Giving an Account of Oneself (2005), Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (2009), Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012), Dispossession: The Performative in the Political (co-authored with Athena Athanasiou, 2013), Senses of the Subject (2015), Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015).

Judith Butler’s most influential book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity can be read as an intervention into feminism. Unmooring feminism at its basis, the book questions the assumption that there is such a thing as the unity of the experience of women. Women of color, who could not accept the category of women as their privileged one, articulated a critique of a unified subject of feminism and the reductive scheme operating within white feminism. Attuned to that polyphonic discourse, Butler maintained that the construction of the category of women involves a regulation of gender relations, which reverses feminist aims. She demonstrated that a feminism premised on the category of women is complicit with compulsory heterosexuality, as heterosexuality is the unreflected condition of a binary coded system of gender and desire.

Gender Trouble tackles the problem of exclusion yet in another way. The text analyzes the categorical violence that is exercised in the act of naming “men” and “women.” It’s a violence that particularly affects those who cannot or don’t want to conform to a binary system of gender. Judith Butler troubled the seeming fixity of this system by making the major point that the “naturalness” of the female and male sexed bodies is in fact the effect of repeated performative acts and as such culturally constructed and open to contestation. She also criticized the categorical address for representing “totalizing gestures.” Later, especially in Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, Judith Butler would revise her profound suspicion of categories of identity she expressed in this text by admitting the inevitability to make use of them and, in doing so, to become dirtied by the language.

Clearly, the achievement of Gender Trouble was that it launched a more nuanced understanding of identity and its mechanisms of exclusion. However, the radical critique of categories of identity can also be couched in positive terms, as in opening up new political possibilities. In this sense, Gender Trouble also marks the advent of a new feminism.

The enormous popularity of Gender Trouble exceeded Judith Butler’s early intentions and not without consequence. All too often, her work gets tethered to notions of gender or performativity, ignoring that Judith Butler hasn’t dwelt upon theorizing within the narrow terms laid out by Gender Trouble. However, Gender Trouble can still be looked at as an overture to her later thinking. Judith Butler remains indebted to an intellectual project that seeks to unsettle common beliefs and sets out to challenge the taken-for-granted through an approach she calls, with reference to Michel Foucault, “politics of troubling.” Another continuity in her work is the concern for the constitution, production, and reproduction of marginality and a desire to show more diverse forms of life have guided her writing throughout the years. While the genealogical analysis of power was central to Judith Butler’s early work, it was later increasingly displaced by the deployment of an ethical framework, which introduced a significant shift.

Undoing Gender is influenced by and contributes to the “New Gender Politics,” dealing with issues of “transgender, transsexuality, intersex, and their complex relations to feminist and queer theory.” The title of the book, however, doesn’t herald a post-gender scenario. Instead, the “undoing” is the cipher for the challenge posed by outside and unknown others, limiting volition and self-making. The expression “being undone” seeks to capture that we are, prior to choice, lost in and to the other, and it’s this losing that constitutes our sense of self. However, such openness, porosity and dispossession of the self do not ring in the death of the subject; rather, it’s the condition of life “essential to the possibility of persisting as human.” In Frames of War, Judith Butler exposes the existential dimension of relationality: “If I survive, it is only because my life is nothing without the life that exceeds me, that refers to some indexical you, without whom I cannot be.”

The idea of a constitutive relation to alterity is a key motive that underpins all of Judith Butler’s writing. It can be traced back to her very first publication, Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflection in Twentieth-Century France, where she locates the ek-static character of being in the Hegelian life and death struggle that transforms into a relationship between Lord and Bondsman. In Undoing Gender, Judith Butler revives this early motive, yet she aspires to displace the dyadic structure of the Hegelian recognition. What surfaces in her later writings is a renewed attention to desire, calling forth a politics prominently featuring corporeality, antagonism and passion. Simultaneously, dispossession, ek-stasis, and relationality gain centrality which are the guiding ideas under which Judith Butler’s later writings can be construed.

In introducing the concept of bodily vulnerability, Judith Butler brings her ontological aspirations linked to the ek-static structure of being on normative grounds. In Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (2004), she makes the central assertion that life is essentially precarious and vulnerable. This grounds life negatively in its exposure to violence and death, but equally endows life, as a positive feature, with its capacity to be responsive and open towards the world. Whereas precariousness captures the shared condition of all existence, precarity, its complementary figure, is the conceptual lens under which the unequal distribution of vulnerability can be comprehended, namely the unequally assigned disposability and the differential access to material resources resulting from neoliberal governmentality and war. By the same token, Judith Butler affirms the idea of global bonds, that is to say a fundamental dependency that is neither restricted to those we know, nor to the imposition of national or cultural boundaries. From there, Butler concludes, arises the ethical obligation to create political institutions and forms of life that guarantee the persistence of (distant) others.

Butler reconsiders these ideas in a global scenario of war in Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? What takes center stage is the epistemological question of how vulnerability can be apprehended given the existence of media frames that preconfigures affective responses and ways of seeing.

In recent lectures and writings, Judith Butler embarks on new terrain. Focusing on political collectives, the coming together of people in public assembly–– the people, citizenship, and public space––Butler revives her sentiment for the performative. Expanding beyond the speech act, she offers a new perspective to her concept of the performative as it is the appearance of corporeal life that establishes performatively a field of the political and supports concerted action. It is the appearance of bodies not only being precarious, but also resistant and persistent. A first systematic approach to these lines of thought can be found in Judith Butler’s recent publication, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015).

Works

Books

Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (Mary Flexner Lectures of Bryn Mawr College), Butler, Judith. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assemby (Mary Flexner Lectures of Bryn Mawr College). Harvard University Press, 2015. ISBN: 0674967755

Dispossession: The Performative in the Political, Butler, Judith, and Athena Athanasiou. Dispossession: The Performative in the Political. Polity, 2013. ISBN: 0745653812

Senses of the Subject, Butler, Judith. Senses of the Subject. Fordham University Press, 2015. ISBN: 082326467X

Qu’est-ce qu’une vie bonne?, Butler, Judith. Qu’est-ce qu’une vie bonne? Kindle Edition. Translated by Martin Rueff. Editions Payot, 2014. ASIN: B00JDHR8JC

Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism, Butler, Judith. Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism. Columbia University Press, 2013. ISBN: 0231146116

Vers la cohabitation: Judéité et critique du sionisme, Butler, Judith. Vers la cohabitation: Judéité et critique du sionisme. Translated by Gildas Le Dem. Fayard, 2013. ISBN: 2213672245

Am Scheideweg: Judentum und die Kritik am Zionismus, Butler, Judith. Am Scheideweg: Judentum und die Kritik am Zionismus. Translated by Reiner Ansén. Campus Verlag, 2013. ISBN: 3593399466

Queere Bündnisse und Antikrigspolitik, Butler, Judith. Queere Bündnisse und Antikrigspolitik. Edited by Tatiana Eggeling. Maennershwarm, 2011. ISBN: 3939542830

The Question of Gender, Butler, Judith and Elizabeth Weed. The Question of Gender: Joan W. Scott‘s Critical Feminism. Indiana University Press, 2011. ISBN: 0253356369.

The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, Butler, Judith. The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere. Columbia University Press. 2011. ISBN: 0231156456

Ce qui fait une vie : Essai sur la violence, la guerre et le deuil, Butler, Judith. Ce qui fait une vie : Essai sur la violence, la guerre et le deuil. Translated by Joëlle Marelli. Zones, 2010. ISBN: 235522028X

Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?, Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? Verso. 2009. ISBN: 1844673332

Raster des Krieges: Warum wir nicht jedes Leid beklagen, Butler, Judith. Raster des Krieges: Warum wir nicht jedes Leid beklagen. Translated by Reiner Ansén. Campus Verlag, 2010. ISBN: 3593391554

Is Critique Secular: Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech, Butler, Judith, Talal Asad, Saba Mahmood, and Wendy Brown. Is Critique Secular: Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech. University of California Press, 2009. ISBN: 0982329415

Die Macht der Geschlechternormen und die Grenzen des Menschlichen, Butler, Judith. Die Macht der Geschlechternormen und die Grenzen des Menschlichen. Translated by Karin Wördemann. Suhrkamp. 2008. ISBN: 3518585053

Kritik der ethischen Gewalt: Adorno-Vorlesungen 2002, Butler, Judith. Kritik der ethischen Gewalt: Adorno-Vorlesungen 2002. Translated by Michael Adrian and Reiner Ansén. Suhrkamp, 2007. ISBN: 3518293923

Who Sings the Nation-State: Language, Politics, Belonging, Butler, Judith, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Who Sings the Nation-State: Language, Politics, Belonging. Seagull Books, 2007. ISBN: 1905422571

Judith Butler in Conversation: Analyzing the Texts and Talk of Everyday Life, Butler, Judith, and Bronwyn Davies. Judith Butler in Conversation: Analyzing the Texts and Talk of Everyday Life. Routledge. 2007. ISBN: 0415956536

Giving an Account of Oneself, Butler, Judith. Giving an Account of Oneself. Fordham University Press, 2005. ISBN: 0823225046

Dar cuenta de si mismo: Violencia ética y responsabilidad, Butler, Judith. Dar cuenta de si mismo. Translated by AMORRORTU. AMORRORTU, 2009. ISBN: 9505187238

Le Récit de Soi, Butler, Judith. Le Récit de Soi. Translated by Bruno Ambroise and Valérie Aucouturie. Presses Universitaires de France, 2007. ISBN: 2130555519

The Judith Butler Reader, Butler, Judith. The Judith Butler Reader. Edited by Sara Salih. Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. ISBN: 0631225935

Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. Verso, 2004. ISBN: 1844670058

Osäkra Liv: Sörjandets och Våldets Makt, Butler, Judith. Osäkra Liv: Sörjandets och Våldets Makt. Translated by Sarah Clyne Sundberg. Tankekraft, 2011. ISBN: 9186273205

Kırılgan Hayat: Yasın ve Şiddetin Gücü, Butler, Judith. Kırılgan Hayat: Yasın ve Şiddetin Gücü. Translated by Başak Ertür. Metis Yayınlar, 2005. ISBN: 9753425325

Gefährdetes Leben: Politische Essays, Butler, Judith. Gefährdetes Leben: Politische Essays. Translated by Karin Wördemann. Suhrkamp. 2005. ISBN: 3518123939

Undoing Gender, Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. Routledge, 2004. ISBN: 0415969239

消解性別 / Xiao jie xing bie, Butler, Judith. 消解性別 / Xiao jie xing bie. Translated by Guo Jie. Shanghai san lian shu dian, 2009. ISBN: 7542629638

Défaire le Genre, Butler, Judith. Défaire le Genre. Translated by Maxime Cervulle. Editions Amsterdam, 2006. ISBN: 291554719X

Genus Ogjort: Kropp, Begär Och Möjlig Existens, Butler, Judith. Genus Ogjort: Kropp, Begär Och Möjlig Existens. Translated by Karin Lindeqvist. Norstedts akademiska förla, 2006. ISBN: 9172274573.

Raščinjavanje Roda, Butler, Judith. Raščinjavanje Roda. Translated by Jasmina Husanovic. Šahinpašić, 2005. ISBN: 9958411229

The Scandal of the Speaking Body: Don Juan with J. L. Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages, Butler, Judith, Shoshana Felman, and Stanley Cavell. The Scandal of the Speaking Body: Don Juan with J. L. Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages. Stanford University Press, 2002. ISBN: 080474453X

Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law, Butler, Judith, Thomas C. Grey, Reva B. Siegel, and Robert C. Post. Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law. Duke University Press, 2002. ISBN: 0822327139

Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death, Butler, Judith. Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death. Columbia University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0231118945

アンティゴネーの主張―問い直される親族関係, Butler, Judith. アンティゴネーの主張―問い直される親族関係. Translated by 竹村 和子. 青土社, 2012 (2002). ISBN: 4791760131

אנטיגונה : יחסי שארות בין חיים למוות / Ṭaʻanat Anṭigonah: Yaḥase Sheʼerut Ben Hayim Le-Maṿet, Butler, Judith. טענת אנטיגונה : יחסי שארות בין חיים למוות / Ṭaʻanat Anṭigonah: Yaḥase Sheʼerut Ben Hayim Le-Maṿet. Resling, 2010.

Żądanie Antygony: Rodzina Między Zyciem a Smiercią, Butler, Judith. Żądanie Antygony: Rodzina Między Zyciem a Smiercią. Translated by Mateusz Borowski and Małgorzata Sugiera. Księgarnia Akademic, 2010. ISBN: 8376380303

Antigone: La Parenté Entre Vie et Mort, Butler, Judith. Antigone: La Parenté Entre Vie et Mort. Epel. 2003. ISBN: 2908855747

Antigones Verlangen: Verwandtschaft Zwischen Leben und Tod, Butler, Judith. Antigones Verlangen: Verwandtschaft Zwischen Leben und Tod. Translated by Reiner Ansen. Suhrkamp, 2001. ISBN: 3518121871

Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left, Butler, Judith, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj Zizek. Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left. Verso, 2000. ISBN: 1859847579

Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, Butler, Judith. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. Routledge, 1997. ISBN: 0415915872

Le Pouvoir des Mots: Discours de Haine et Politique du Performatif, Butler, Judith. Le Pouvoir des Mots: Discours de Haine et Politique du Performatif. Translated by Charlotte Nordmann. Éditions Amsterda, 2008. ISBN: 235480024X

Hass Spricht: Zur Politik des Performativen, Butler, Judith. Hass Spricht: Zur Politik des Performativen. Translated by Kathrina Menke, Markus Krist. Berlin-Verlag, 1998. ISBN: 3827001668

The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection, Butler, Judith. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection. Stanford University Press. Stanford, 1997. ISBN: 0804728119

İktidarın Psişik Yaşamı, Butler, Judith. İktidarın Psişik Yaşamı. Translated by Fatma Tütüncü. Ayrıntı Yayınları, 2005. ISBN: 9755394427

La Vie Psychique du Pouvoir: L’Assujettissement en Theories, Butler, Judith. La Vie Psychique du Pouvoir: L’Assujettissement en Theories. Translated by Brice Matthieussent. Leo Scheer, 2003. ISBN: 2914172583

Mecanismos Psíquicos del Poder: Teorías Sobre la Sujeción, Butler, Judith. Mecanismos Psíquicos del Poder: Teorías Sobre la Sujeción. Translated by Jacqueline Cruz. Ediciones Cátedr, 2001. ISBN: 8437619394

Psyche der Macht, Butler, Judith. Psyche der Macht. Translated by Reiner Ansen. Suhrkamp, 2001. ISBN: 3518117440

Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’, Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. Routledge, 1993. ISBN: 0415903661

Körper von Gewicht : Die Diskursiven Grenzen des Geschlechts, Butler, Judith. Körper von Gewicht : Die Diskursiven Grenzen des Geschlechts. Translated by Karin Wördemann. Suhrkamp, 2009. ISBN: 3518117378

Ces Corps Qui Comptent: De la Materialite et des Limites Discursiv, Butler, Judith. Ces Corps Qui Comptent: De la Materialite et des Limites Discursiv. Editions Amsterdam, 2009. ISBN: 235480041X

权力的精神生活: 服从的理论 / Quan li de jing shen sheng huo : fu cong de li lun,Butler, Judith. 权力的精神生活 : 服从的理论 / Quan li de jing shen sheng huo : fu cong de li lun. Jiangsu ren min chu ban she. Translated by Sheng Zhang. 2009. ISBN: 7214053667

Cuerpos que Importan: Sobre los Límites Materiales y Discursivos del “Sexo”, Butler, Judith. Cuerpos que Importan: Sobre los Límites Materiales y Discursivos del “Sexo”. Paidós. 2002. ISBN: 9501238113

Tela Koja Nešto Znače: O Diskurzivnim Granicama “Spola”, Butler, Judith. Tela Koja Nešto Znače: O Diskurzivnim Granicama “Spola”. Translated by Slavic Miletić. Samizdat B92, 2001. ISBN: 8679631248

Corpi Che Contano: Il Limiti Discorsivi Del’sesso, Butler, Judith. Corpi Che Contano: Il Limiti Discorsivi Del’sesso. Campi del sapere. Translated by Simona Capelli. Feltrinelli, 1996. ISBN: 8807101998

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1989. ISBN: 0415900433

Problemas de Gênero: Feminismo e Subversão da Identidade, Butler, Judith. Problemas de Gênero: Feminismo e Subversão da Identidade. Translated by Renato Aguiar. Civilização Brasileira, 2008. ISBN: 8520006116

El Género en Disputa: El Feminismo y la Subversión de la Identidad, Butler, Judith. El Género en Disputa: El Feminismo y la Subversión de la Identidad. Translated by Antonia Muño. Paidos, 2008. ISBN: 8449320305

性/別惑亂: 女性主義與身分顛覆 / bie huo luan: nü xing zhu yi yu shen fen dian fu,Butler, Judith. 性/別惑亂: 女性主義與身分顛覆/ bie huo luan: nü xing zhu yi yu shen fen dian fu. Translated by Yuting Lin. Gui guan tu shu gu fen you xian gong si, 2008. ISBN: 9577305857

Uwikłani w Płeć: Feminizm i Polityka Tożsamości, Butler, Judith. Uwikłani w Płeć: Feminizm i Polityka Tożsamości. Translated by Karolina Krasuska. Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2008. ISBN: 9788361006336

Trouble dans le Genre: Le Féminisme et la Subversion de L’Identité, Butler, Judith. Trouble dans le Genre: Le Féminisme et la Subversion de L’Identité. Translated by Cynthia Kraus. Preface by Éric Fass. La Découvert, 2006. ISBN: 2707150185

Težave s Spolom: Feminizem in Subverzija Identitete, Butler, Judith. Težave s Spolom: Feminizem in Subverzija Identitete. Translated by Suzana Tratnik. ŠKUC, 2001. ISBN: 961608528X

Jenda Toraburu: Feminizumu to Aidentiti no Kakuran, Butler, Judith. Jenda Toraburu: Feminizumu to Aidentiti no Kakuran. Translated by Kazuko Takemura. Seidosha, 1999.

Das Unbehagen der Geschlechter, Butler, Judith. Das Unbehagen der Geschlechter. Translated by Kathrina Menke. Suhrkamp, 1991. ISBN: 351811722X

Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France, Butler, Judith. Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France. Columbia University Press, 1987. ISBN: 0231064500

Sujets du désir: Réfexions Hégéliennes en France au XXº Siecle, Butler, Judith. Sujets du désir: Réfexions Hégéliennes en France au XXº Siecle. Translated by Philippe Salbot. Presses Universitaires de France, 2011. ISBN: 2130581587

Chapters

Foreword

Butler, Judith. Foreword to State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious, by Isabell Lorey. Verso, 2015. ISBN: 1781685967

Dialogue: Antigone, Speech, Performance, Power

Butler, Judith, and Paul Rabinow. “Dialogue: Antigone, Speech, Performance, Power.” In Talk, Talk, Talk: The Cultural Life of Everyday Conversation, edited by S. I. Salamensky. Routledge, 2001. ISBN: 0415921716

The End of Sexual Difference?

Butler, Judith. “The End of Sexual Difference?” In Feminist Consequences: Theory for the New Century, edited by Elisabeth Bronfen and Misha Kavka. Columbia University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0231117043

How Can I Deny That These Hands and This Body Are Mine?

Butler, Judith. “How Can I Deny That These Hands and This Body Are Mine?” In Material Events: Paul de Man and the Afterlife of Theory, edited by Tom Cohen, Barbara Cohen, J. Hillis Miller, and Andrzej Warminski. University of Minnesota Press, 2000. ISBN: 0816636141

Circuits of Bad Conscience: Nietzsche and Freud

Butler, Judith. “Circuits of Bad Conscience: Nietzsche and Freud.” In Why Nietzsche Still? Reflections on Drama, Culture, Politics, edited by Alan D. Schrift. University of California Press, 2000. ISBN: 0520218523

Critically Queer

Butler, Judith. “Critically Queer.” In GenderReaders in Cultural Criticism, edited by Anna Tripp. Palgrave, 2000. ISBN: 0333770374

Ethical Ambivalence

Butler, Judith. “Ethical Ambivalence.” In The Turn to Ethics. Culture Works, edited by Marjorie Garber, Beatrice Hanssen, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz. Routledge, 2000. ISBN: 0415922267

The Force of Fantasy: Feminism, Mapplethorpe, and Discursive Excess

Butler, Judith. “The Force of Fantasy: Feminism, Mapplethorpe, and Discursive Excess.” In Feminism and Pornography, edited by Drucilla Cornell. Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0198782500

Performance

Butler, Judith. “Performance.” In Readings: Acts of Close Reading in Literary Theory, edited by Julian Wolfreys. Edinburgh University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0748613528

Quandaries of the Incest Taboo,” in Whose Freud?

Butler, Judith. “Quandaries of the Incest Taboo.” In Whose Freud? The Place of Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture, edited by Peter Brooks and Alex Woloch. Yale University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0300087454

Subjection, Resistance, Resignification: Between Freud and Foucault

Butler, Judith. “Subjection, Resistance, Resignification: Between Freud and Foucault.” In American Continental PhilosophyStudies in Continental Thought, edited by Walter Brogan and James Risser. Indiana University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0253213762

Contagious Word: Paranoia and ‘Homosexuality’ in the Military

Butler, Judith. “Contagious Word: Paranoia and ‘Homosexuality’ in the Military.” In The Good Citizen, edited by David Batstone and Eduardo Mendieta. Routledge, 2001. ISBN: 0415929083

Headnote to Stanley Fish’s ‘There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too

Butler, Judith. “Headnote to Stanley Fish’s ‘There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too,'” in The Stanley Fish Reader, ed. H. Aram Veeser . Blackwell, 1999. ISBN: 0631204393

Performativity’s Social Magic

Butler, Judith. “Performativity’s Social Magic.” In Bourdieu: A Critical Reader, edited by Richard Shusterman. Blackwell, 1998. ISBN: 0631188185

Afterword

Butler, Judith. Afterword to Butch/Femme: Inside Lesbian Gender, by Sally R. Munt. Cassell, 1999. ISBN: 030433958X

Foreword

Butler, Judith. Foreword to The Erotic Bird: Phenomenology in Literature, by Maurice Natanso. Princeton University Press, 1998. ISBN: 0691012199

Moral Sadism and Doubting One’s Own Love

Butler, Judith. “Moral Sadism and Doubting One’s Own Love.” In Reading Melanie Klein, edited by john Phillips and Lyndsey Stonebridge. Routledge, 1998. ISBN: 0415162378

Ruled Out: Vocabularies of the Censor

Butler, Judith. “Ruled Out: Vocabularies of the Censor.” In Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation, edited by Robert C. Post. Getty, 1998. ISBN: 0486267881

Selection from Bodies that Matter

Butler, Judith. “Selection from Bodies that Matter.” In Body and Flesh: A Philosophical Reader, edited by Donn Welton. Blackwell, 1998. ISBN: 1577181263

Passing Queering: Nella Larsen’s Psychoanalytic Challenge

Butler, Judith. “Passing Queering: Nella Larsen’s Psychoanalytic Challenge.” In Female Subjects in Black and White: Race, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, edited by Elizabeth Abel, Barbara Christian and Helene Moglen. University of California Press, 1997. ISBN: 0520206304

Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire

Butler, Judith. “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire.” In Feminisms, edited by Sandra Kemp, Judith Squires. Oxford Readers, 1997. ISBN: 0192892703

Excerpt from ‘Introduction’ to Bodies that Matter

Butler, Judith. “Excerpt from ‘Introduction’ to Bodies that Matter.” In The Gender/Sexuality Reader: Culture, History, Political Economy, edited by Roger N. Lancaster and Michaela di Leonardo. Routledge, 1997. ISBN: 0415910056

Gender Is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion

Butler, Judith. “Gender Is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion.” In Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial PerspectivesCultural Politics, 11, edited by Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti, and Ella Shohat. University of Minnesota Press, 1997. ISBN: 0816626499

Imitation and Gender Subordination

Butler, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Subordination.” In The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory, edited by Linda Nicholson. Routledge, 1997. ISBN: 0415917611

Desire

Butler, Judith. “Desire.” In Critical Terms for Literary Study, edited by Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN: 0226472035

For a Careful Reading

Butler, Judith. “For a Careful Reading.” In Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange, 127-143. Routledge, 1995. ISBN: 0415910862

Stubborn Attachment, Bodily Subjection: Rereading Hegel on the Unhappy Consciousness

Butler, Judith. “Stubborn Attachment, Bodily Subjection: Rereading Hegel on the Unhappy Consciousness.” In Intersections: Nineteenth-Century Philosophy and Contemporary Theory, edited by Tilottama Rajan and David L. Clark. State University of New York Press, 1995. ISBN: 0791422577

Attachement obstiné et assujettissement corporel–Relire Hegel à propos de la conscience malheureuse

Butler, Judith. “Attachement obstiné et assujettissement corporel–Relire Hegel à propos de la conscience malheureuse.” Translated by Michel Vakaloulis. In Hegel passé, Hegel à venir, edited by Claude Amey and Henri Maler. Editions l’Harmattan, 1995.

Subjection, Resistance, Resignification: Between Freud and Foucault

Butler, Judith. “Subjection, Resistance, Resignification: Between Freud and Foucault.” In The Identity in Question, edited by John Rajchman. Routledge, 1995. ISBN: 0415906180

Thresholds of Melancholy

Butler, Judith. “Thresholds of Melancholy.” In The Prism of the Self: Philosophical Essays in Honor of Maurice Natanson, edited by Steven Galt Crowell. Kluwer, 1995. ISBN: 0792335465

Burning Acts-Injurious Speech

Butler, Judith. “Burning Acts-Injurious Speech.” In Performativity and Performance, edited by Andrew Parker and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, 197-227. Routledge, 1995.

Burning Acts: Injurious Speech

Butler, Judith. “Burning Acts: Injurious Speech.” In Deconstruction is/in America: A New Sense of the Political, edited by Anselm Haverkamp, 149-180. New York University Press, 1995.

Collected and Fractured: Response to Identities

Butler, Judith. “Collected and Fractured: Response to Identities.” In Identities, edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 439-447. University of Chicago Press, 1995.

The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva

Butler, Judith. “The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva.” In Ethics, Politics, and Difference in Julia Kristeva’s Writings: A Collection of Essays, edited by Kelly Oliver. Routledge, 1993. ISBN: 0415907047

Critical Exchanges: The Symbolic and Questions of Gender

Butler, Judith. “Critical Exchanges: The Symbolic and Questions of Gender.” In Questioning Foundations: Truth/Subjectivity/Culture, edited by Hugh J. Silverman. Routledge, 1993. ISBN: 0415906245

Endangered/Endangering: Schematic Racism and White Paranoia

Butler, Judith. “Endangered/Endangering: Schematic Racism and White Paranoia.” In Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising, edited by Robert Gooding-Williams. Routledge, 1993. ISBN: 0415907357

A Skeptical Feminist Postscript to the Postmodern

Butler, Judith. “A Skeptical Feminist Postscript to the Postmodern.” In Postmodernism Across the Ages: Essays for a Postmodernity That Wasn’t Born Yesterday, edited by Bill Readings and Bennet Schaber. Syracuse University Press, 1993. ISBN: 0815625774

Gender

Butler, Judith. “Gender.” In Feminism and Psychoanalysis: A Critical Dictionary, edited by Elizabeth Wright, et al. Blackwell, 1992. ISBN: 0631183477

Kierkegaard’s Speculative Despair

Butler, Judith. “Kierkegaard’s Speculative Despair.” In The Age of German Idealism, edited by Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen Marie Higgins. Routledge, 1993. ISBN: 0415056047

Repenser la politique et l’ontologie ou ‘répétition et oubli

Butler, Judith. “Repenser la politique et l’ontologie ou ‘répétition et oubli’.” Translated by Arno Mayer. In Penser après HeideggerLa Philosophie en commun, edited by Jacques Poulain and Wolfgang Schirmacher, 125-134. L’Harmattan, 1992. ISBN: 2738410642

Sexual Inversions: Rereading the End of Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Vol. I

Butler, Judith. “Sexual Inversions: Rereading the End of Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Vol. I.” In Discourses of Sexuality: From Aristotle to AIDS, edited by Domna C. Stanton. University of Michigan Press, 1992. ISBN: 0472065130

Imitation and Gender Insubordination

Butler, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” In Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, edited by Diana Fuss. Routledge, 1999. ISBN: 0415902371

Imitation and Gender Insubordination

Butler, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” In The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, edited by Henry Abelove, Michèle Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin. Routledge, 1993. ISBN: 0415905192

The Nothing that Is: Wallace Stevens’ Hegelian Affinities

Butler, Judith. “The Nothing that Is: Wallace Stevens’ Hegelian Affinities.” In Theorizing American Literature: Hegel, the Sign, and History, ed. Bainard Cowan, and Joseph G. Kronick. Louisiana State University Press, 1991. ISBN: 0807116289

Gender Trouble, Feminist Theory, and Psychoanalytic Discourse

Butler, Judith. “Gender Trouble, Feminist Theory, and Psychoanalytic Discourse.” In Feminism/Postmodernism, edited by Linda J. Nicholson. Routledge, 1990. ISBN: 041590059X

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Butler, Judith. “Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980).” In European Writers: The Twentieth Century, ed. George Stade. MacMillan Publishing Company, 1990. ISBN: 0684179164

The Pleasures of Repetition

Butler, Judith. “The Pleasures of Repetition.” In Pleasure Beyond the Pleasure PrincipleThe Role of Affect in Motivation, Development, and Adaptation, Vol. 1, edited by Robert A. Glick and Stanley Bone. Yale University Press, 1990. ISBN: 0300047932

Commentary on Joseph Flay’s ‘Hegel, Derrida and Bataille’s Laughter’

Butler, Judith. “Commentary on Joseph Flay’s ‘Hegel, Derrida and Bataille’s Laughter’.” In Hegel and His Critics: Philosophy in the Aftermath of Hegel, edited by William Desmond. State University of New York Press, 1989. ISBN: 0887066682

Sexual Ideology and Phenomenological Description: A Feminist Critique of Merleau-Ponty’sPhenomenology of Perception

Butler, Judith. “Sexual Ideology and Phenomenological Description: A Feminist Critique of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception.” In The Thinking Muse: Feminism and Modern French Philosophy, edited by Jeffner Allen and Marion Young. Indiana University Press, 1989. ISBN: 0253359805

Gendering the Body: Beauvoir’s Political Contribution

Butler, Judith. “Gendering the Body: Beauvoir’s Political Contribution.” In Women, Knowledge, and Reality: Explorartions in Feminist Philosophy, edited by Ann Garry and Marilyn Pearsall. Unwin Hyman, 1989. ISBN: 9780044452225

Lectures

Judith Butler

Judith Butler – “The Problem with Our Laws” (Excerpt) – 10.11.2020

14.02.2021
Judith Butler

Judith Butler – “The Problem of Our Laws” – Fall 2020 Lecture (Excerpt)

10.10.2020
Judith Butler

“Gender in Translation: Beyond Monolingualism”

27.01.2019
Judith Butler

To preserve the life of the Other

13.10.2016
Judith Butler

Distinctions on violence and nonviolence

20.02.2016
Judith Butler

Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling

01.01.2014
Judith Butler

One time traverses another, Benjamin’s Theologico-Political Fragment

12.09.2013
Avital Ronell, Judith Butler

Psychoanalysis, authority and discernment

04.09.2013
Judith Butler, Avital Ronell

Freud and non-violence

09.01.2013
Avital Ronell, Judith Butler, Laurence Arthur Rickels

Kafka’s Before The Law: Law of The Father

04.09.2011
Judith Butler, Bracha Ettinger

Ethics on a Global Scale

18.04.2011
Judith Butler

Odradek and Capitalism

21.03.2011
Judith Butler

The Figure of Odradek in Kafka

19.03.2011
Judith Butler

How To Read Kafka

11.03.2011
Judith Butler

Benjamin and Kafka

23.02.2011
Judith Butler

Benjamin and The Philosophy of History

11.02.2011
Judith Butler

Kafka’s Parables and Paradoxes

10.02.2011
Judith Butler

Kafka and The Poetics of Non-Arrival

10.02.2011
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 10/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 9/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 8/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 7/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 6/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 5/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 4/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Binationalism and the Subject 4/6

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 3/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 2/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Palestine and Nationhood After the Subject 1/10

07.12.2009
Judith Butler

Binationalism and the Subject 6/6

02.12.2009
Judith Butler

Binationalism and the Subject 5/6

02.12.2009
Judith Butler

Ethics and Politics After the Subject 1/8

26.11.2009
Judith Butler

Hannah Arendt, Ethics, and Responsibility 6/10

30.09.2009
Judith Butler

Hannah Arendt, Ethics, and Responsibility 4/10

30.09.2009
Judith Butler

Hannah Arendt, Ethics, and Responsibility 3/10

30.09.2009
Judith Butler

Hannah Arendt, Ethics, and Responsibility 2/10

30.09.2009
Judith Butler

Hannah Arendt, Ethics, and Responsibility 1/10

30.09.2009
Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben

Eichmann, Law and Justice 7/7

16.09.2009
Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben

Eichmann, Law and Justice 6/7

16.09.2009
Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben

Eichmann, Law and Justice 5/7

16.09.2009
Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben

Eichmann, Law and Justice 4/7

16.09.2009
Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben

Eichmann, Law and Justice 2/7

16.09.2009
Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben

Eichmann, Law and Justice 1/7

16.09.2009
Avital Ronell, Laurence Arthur Rickels, Judith Butler

Arendt, Heidegger & The Role of Thinking 15/15

04.09.2009
Avital Ronell, Laurence Arthur Rickels, Judith Butler

Arendt, Heidegger & The Role of Thinking 14/15

04.09.2009
Avital Ronell, Laurence Arthur Rickels, Judith Butler

Arendt, Heidegger & The Role of Thinking 13/15

04.09.2009
Avital Ronell, Laurence Arthur Rickels, Judith Butler

Arendt, Heidegger & The Role of Thinking 12/15

04.09.2009
Judith Butler

Primo Levi for the Present 1/10

05.05.2006
Judith Butler

Trauma and Holocaust

16.03.2006