Judith Butler's Gender Performativity And Its Political Practices

Judith Butler puts forwards one of her most controversial idea of gender performativity in her representative work Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.By the concept of gender performativity Butler aims to deconstruct stable gender relationship,to destroy compulsory heterosexual matrix,claiming that not only gender but also subjects,identity and bodily politics are performative and productive,which is fundamentally against Cartesian dichotomy mode.Moreover,a political turn emerges in Butler's theory from Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity to Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence,hence Butler's account of performativity shows its shift from feminist and queer theory to political theory and life practices.In general,the thesis is going to elaborate how Butler theoretically deconstructs static subjects of gender and then to build her politics of identity.Following are the issues probed into in the dissertation: Question the efficacy of gender performativity in deconstructing compulsory binary relation of sex,gender and sexuality;Tease theoretical resources of performativity in the particular linguistic context: Austin's performativity of language,Derrida's iterability and reiterability of language,Althusser's efficacy of interpellation,etc.;Focus on the political turn and rethink terms of gender performativity including normative violence,parody,drag,political agency in the political framework;Interpret the contributions that Butler's performativity made to current politics and the insights it offers about rights throughout human body and life.