tomwbrass's review against another edition
3.0
3 stars for being Important™️ but how I wish Judith could write in an accessible manner o.O
marobbins's review against another edition
4.0
A very dense, but very interesting read for those who are interested in queer theory and feminist theory.
morepeachyogurt's review against another edition
butler knows many words, clear or consice are not ones. i was very excited to read this book only for it to be the most dense inaccessible book i’ve ever read, including hobbes. disappointing
leelulah's review against another edition
1.0
This woman frustrates me greatly, for she thinks you can't pin her down, but she's so repetitive and obvious that even though this promises to provide the much needed clarifications to [b:Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity|85767|Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity|Judith Butler|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1349037224s/85767.jpg|2249813], it just reaffirms everything I knew that was wrong with that book. In her vision, not only gender is a construct, but sex too.
Of course she does not entirely reject the body, but says that there is nothing there which is not mediated by culture as if culture was bad on the whole. Of course, this is where the "BuT wHaT aBouT hErmApHrOdIteS?" argument comes from, failing to consider that even then, intersex people are a) extremely rare, and b)overwhelmingly genetically male. Sex is also determined by chromosomes rather than by a "phallogocentric Lacan dervided" construct. None of this takes away the reality of sex as such.
Annoyingly enough, she has no better idea than to go on about psychology for a lot of time in the book, never considering that she's making up *constructs* to defy the constructs she dislikes.
Science, folks.
Of course she does not entirely reject the body, but says that there is nothing there which is not mediated by culture as if culture was bad on the whole. Of course, this is where the "BuT wHaT aBouT hErmApHrOdIteS?" argument comes from, failing to consider that even then, intersex people are a) extremely rare, and b)overwhelmingly genetically male. Sex is also determined by chromosomes rather than by a "phallogocentric Lacan dervided" construct. None of this takes away the reality of sex as such.
Annoyingly enough, she has no better idea than to go on about psychology for a lot of time in the book, never considering that she's making up *constructs* to defy the constructs she dislikes.
Science, folks.
casparb's review against another edition
5.0
Ok it's Judith so it goes without saying this is a difficult text but even by their standards Bodies That Matter is a challenge. There's plenty of prep reading to do here, including one of the most difficult works of contemporary philosophy - Žižek's Sublime Object of Ideology . I don't think it's essential to read every text that JB has a chapter on here but certainly I think BTM asks for a level of Lacanian understanding and a competency with Derrida, who is especially present in the first half of the text. At the least watch Paris is Burning .
Foucault Nietzsche Kristeva Irigaray Laclau Freud Kripke & bell hooks are others to have solid grasp of and I don't claim to possess this for all.
It's a text that exists, in part, to tighten some of the screws of Gender Trouble , and I think it succeeds in that as well as developing new areas which seem even more fruitful than GT. will be coming back
Foucault Nietzsche Kristeva Irigaray Laclau Freud Kripke & bell hooks are others to have solid grasp of and I don't claim to possess this for all.
It's a text that exists, in part, to tighten some of the screws of Gender Trouble , and I think it succeeds in that as well as developing new areas which seem even more fruitful than GT. will be coming back
wrengaia's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. This was so fascinating.
This is very much a response to Butler’s earlier (and more well known) work ‘Gender Trouble’, and despite having read it a couple of years ago I think the two do work together very well. Here, Butler takes the body itself as her place of departure, exploring the ways in which discourse acts to constitute the body, and the power that constructs this discourse. I thought her use of Derridean citationality with reference to gender performativity and how it ultimately reveals the unstable and incoherent nature of gender itself was particularly fascinating, and her argument for a fundamentally intersectional queer theory with her analysis of Nella Larsen’s ‘Passing’ is brilliant. This is as dense as Butler always is, but absolutely worth the work.
This is very much a response to Butler’s earlier (and more well known) work ‘Gender Trouble’, and despite having read it a couple of years ago I think the two do work together very well. Here, Butler takes the body itself as her place of departure, exploring the ways in which discourse acts to constitute the body, and the power that constructs this discourse. I thought her use of Derridean citationality with reference to gender performativity and how it ultimately reveals the unstable and incoherent nature of gender itself was particularly fascinating, and her argument for a fundamentally intersectional queer theory with her analysis of Nella Larsen’s ‘Passing’ is brilliant. This is as dense as Butler always is, but absolutely worth the work.