Theorizing Social Construction: Performativity
[T]he concept of performativity . . . explains those everyday productions of gender and sexual identity which seem most to evade explanation. For gender is perfomative, not because it is something that the subject deliberately and playfully assumes, but because, through reiteration, it consolidates the subject. In this respect, performativity is the precondition of the subject.
—Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction (86)
Required Readings
Jagose Queer Theory, Ch. 7 (83-93)
Salih The Judith Butler Reader, Introduction (1-17), Introduction “Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions (1990)” (90-94), Preface [to second edition of Gender Trouble] (94-103) (Moodle)
Butler Gender Trouble Preface (pp. ix-xiv), Ch. 1 “Subjects of
Sex/Gender/Desire” (1-9), Ch. 3 “Subversive Bodily Acts”:
“iv. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions” (128-141),
Conclusion “From Parody to Politics” (142-49) (Moodle)
Salih The Judith Butler Reader, Introduction [to excerpt from Bodies That Matter] (138-143) (Moodle)
Butler Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex, Preface (ix-xii), Introduction (1-23), Ch. 4 “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion” (121-40) (Moodle)
Additional Resources
Film: Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston 1990) [YouTube excerpts]
Sample journal entry 1
Sample journal entry 2
Due This Week
Weekly journal entry including main points from readings, to be submitted electronically, and observations about your own sexuality and understanding of sexuality, to be kept in a private journal.
Ch. 8 Homework Questions