Reading Judith Butler
Quilting Points returns for its seventh
consecutive year with a new focus on Judith Butler.
We are very pleased to announce the return
of Quilting Points, an interdisciplinary critical and cultural theory reading
group based at the University of Leeds.
This year, we will be conducting a
year-long discussion on the work of Judith Butler. Since the publication of her
first two monographs, Subjects of Desire (1987) and Gender Trouble (1990),
Butler’s theories on gender and identity, and power and language, are now
widely recognised as cornerstones in the development of contemporary critical
theory and philosophy.
While Butler’s most notable impact has been in the fields of gender studies,
feminist theory, queer theory, and ethics studies, there are few areas in the
Humanities left untouched by her work. From her foundational notion of gender
performativity to her recent and ongoing work on precarity, Butler’s
intellectual range is both established and continually evolving. Over the course
of the year, we will take the opportunity to critically reflect on Butler’s
canonical status in the field of critical theory. In what ways does her work
influence today’s gender theorists and cultural commentators? What can we learn
from the critics who challenge and dispute her work?
As a group, we will explore what Butler’s
relevance is now – not only to contemporary critical theory, but to wider
political debates such as the #MeToo movement, trans and non-binary rights, and
the Title IX amendment. When Butler is as readily quoted by Gayatri Spivak as
she is by New York drag queen Sasha Velour, it seems prudent to probe just how
and why she has come to make such a profound mark on the way we talk about
gender, identity formation, and daily operations of power.
By way of introduction to Butler’s diverse
corpus, during the first term, we will focus closely on some of Butler’s most
foundational theories. Sessions will be broadly organised around four areas of
inquiry: gender and identity; queerness; symbolic violence and language; and
ethics.
We will begin with a close reading of
passages from Gender Trouble and her 1988 essay ‘Performative Acts and
Gender Constitution’. Our first session will be held on Thursday 4th
October. All are very welcome to attend. Stay tuned for further updates,
and welcome to a new year of Quilting Points.
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