On Judith Butler’s Body Politics

Judith Butler (1956-) is an American post-structuralist philosopher, noted for her achievements in feminism, gender studies, political philosophy, and ethics. She focuses her body politics on the theory of subject formulation, studying the relations of sex and gender, psyche and power, gender production, the reproduction of capitalist relations of production and so on. She makes tremendous contributions to feminism theories and feminist political movement. Her theory of subject promotes the development of post-Marxism thought. This thesis researches into Judith Butler’s body politics in order to explore its inspiration for feminist politics and the left theory, which may help promote researches on Marxism.Based on textual reading, this thesis is trying to deal with the trend in Judith Butler’s theories on body politics, and reveal its scientific and philosophical significance. The main contributions and innovations include:(1) illustrating the ideological background and the origination of Judith Butler’s body politics; (2) analyzing Judith Butler’s representative works thoroughly with textual reading; (3) summarizing Judith Butler’s reflection on feminist politics and showing how Judith Butler deconstruct the process of how control and discipline is imposed upon gender and body by language as power; (4) presenting Judith Butler’s changes in her ideology and how her research focus changes from gender study to body politics and finally to the discussion of radical democracy;(5) exploring the practical significance of Judith Butler’s theory in the social political struggles;(6) filling other gaps in studies on Butler in China.This dissertation is divided into seven parts:one introduction, five chapters and one concluding remarks. Introduction and Chapter One mainly present the ideological background and the origination of Judith Butler’s body politics. On the basis of textological-reading of Butler’s three representative books, Chapter Two to Four analyzes the process of how Butler’s research focus changes from gender study to body politics and finally to the discussion of radical democracy. Finally, the disputes and reflections caused by Judith Butler’s research are discussed in Chapter Five.The concrete contents of above chapters are as following:the introduction explains the causes and significance of the research, states the methodology of this thesis, introduces Butler’s biography and research background, and summarizes the research situation in China and abroad. Chapter One presents the social and theoretical background of Butler’s study. The inkling of her turning to body politics is also pointed out.Chapter Two centers on Gender Trouble analyzing Butler’s gender study, showing how she proposed the famous performativity theory by reflecting on the relation of sex and gender, and also reviewing the traditional feminist political theory.The analysis object of Chapter Three is Butler’s Body Matter. Through expatiation on the materializing process of body, Butler rethinks the relation between the matter of body and discourse to prove that the gendering subject is as much a negative product of norms for power as an active opposed subject.Chapter Four focuses on Butler’s The Psychic Life of Power:Theories in Subjection, and explains how Butler reveals the power forces which reduce subject to obedience is precisely the origination of subject’s activity. In order to achieve this, she rereads the history of philosophy and exposes that subject will find the possibility of resistance in such a contradictory state.Chapter Five pays much attention to show how Butler uses her radical democracy political policy to find some solutions for the problems in social reality. Butler’s criticism to normative violence, her analysis on the relation of gender production and the reproduction of capitalist relations of production are discussed. The dispute caused by Butler in social life is also mentioned.In the concluding remarks, Butler’s theory is evaluated and her theoretical contributions to Chinese women in modern world is revealed.