Butler’s account of performativity . . . problematises the very notion of subjective agency in and through its deconstruction of the humanist subject. Performativity, as Butler understands it, is the pre-condition of the subject, the discursive vehicle through which ontological effects are produced. There is not first an ‘I’ who performs, rather, the ‘I’ is constituted in and through performative processes.
—Nikki Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (89)
Required Readings
Sullivan, Ch. 5 “Performance, Performativity, Parody, and Politics” (81-98)
Graduate Readings [on Moodle2]: Salih intro to Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (138-first paragraph on 143); Butler Bodies That Matter, Ch. 4 “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion” (121-40)
Additional Resources
Film: Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston 1990), Film trailer, YouTube interview with director and cast
Due This Week
- Ten key Terms or concepts in readings
- Two LGBTQIA representations
- Two LGBTQIA issues
- Presentation of representations and issues
- Queer Theory Week 10 Questions on Readings
- Week 9 and Week 10 Graduate Reading Questions and Presentations on Butler
- Paper abstract, outline, and bibliography due (5050)
- Group 2 Presentation: Jessie Howie, Sam[aneh] Balali, Chris Lovick