Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex 1st Edition

In Bodies That Matter, Judith Butler builds upon her previous work, Gender Trouble, and argues, “The category of ‘sex’ is, from the start, normative; it is what Foucault called a ‘regulatory ideals.’” (pg. xi) Practice, specifically regulated practice, materializes these ideals. In a lengthy passage, Butler discusses the role of gender, writing,"If gender consists of the social meanings that sex assumes, then sex does not accrue social meanings as additive properties but, rather, is replaced by the social meanings it takes on; sex is relinquished in the course of that assumption, and gender emerges, not as a term in a continued relationship of opposition to sex, but as the term which absorbs and displaces 'sex,' the mark of its full substantiation into gender or what, from a materialists point of view, might constitute a full desubstantiation." (pg. xv)In order to achieve her analytical framework, Butler proposes “in place of these conceptions of constructions is a return to the notion of matter, not as a site or surface, but as a process of materialization that stabilizes over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity, and surface we call matter.” (pg. xviii) Butler’s examination draws upon a wide array of sources, including Plato’s Timeus, Freud, Jacques Lacan, Willa Cather, Nella Larsen, and more. Butler’s purpose in writing was “to understand how what has been foreclosed or banished from the proper domain of ‘sex’…might at once be produced as a troubling return, not only as an imaginary contestation that effects a failure in the workings of the inevitable law, but as an enabling disruption, the occasion for a radical rearticulation of the symbolic horizon in which bodies come to matter at all.” (pg. xxx) These run-on sentences pervade Butler’s writing and often obscure her meaning and argument.

Not as ground-breaking as Gender Trouble, but a worthy follow-up that should be required reading for gender scholars. For the more casual reader, Butler's obtuse writing style may get in the way, but worth tackling if you're passionate about issues around gender and sexuality.

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While Butler can be a difficult read at times, her work is essential for those studying gender.

This could be a foundation for scholars trying to teach about the corner stones of modern social reality. When this is just a book on one of my shelves, intellectuals don't seem to matter for the pleasure addicts who plan daily activities like highly medicated aging and obese sloppy drunk juice clowns.

When I first read this book, I was pleased to see that Butler was returning to the problem of "gender performativity" she raised in *Gender Trouble.* I do believe that she was misunderstood as having claimed in *Gender Trouble* that the performativity constitutive of gender implies an infinite "plasticity" or freedom from the constraints of gender. Yet after reading *Bodies,* I felt that she evaded the question with which she opened the book: in what way can the "materiality" of anatomical sex be construed as a "discursive limit" to ideological constructions of gender without being understood as existing outside of discourse? I believe that Butler is ultimately indecisive about the status of the materiality of sex as either a pre- or extra-discursive "hard kernel of the Real" or (just like gender) another aspect of discourse. This is what leads to her very wrong-headed "critique" of the concept of "objet petit a" in the work of Slavoj Zizek and Jacques Lacan, very complex work which she oversimplifies and accuses of "reifying" or "essentializing" sex. Any serious student of Lacan knows that the a-object of fantasy is anything but "essential." It phantasmatically "dresses up" (to use Lacan's words in Seminar 14) a primordial psychic "hole," an *absence* or pure negativity where a "grounding" for discourse ought to be but is *lacking.* It's a shame that a book such as this which begins with a rigorous intellectual question degenerates into a sort of psychoanalytic dilettantism.

My initial reaction to reading Bodies that Matter by Judith Butler is that she writes from a very unique perspective and theoretical standpoint: post-structuralism. While she maybe considered one of the foremost theorists on gender and feminism, I find her writings extremely difficult to follow. She presents key concepts readily but in a langue that is indicative of the post-structuralist perspective, convoluted and overly wordy. More often than not I found myself loosing focus and having to reread numerous passages just to maintain basic understanding. If language, as Butler suggests, is confined by the language used (Butler 91: 1993) then Butler is caged. Her critical deconstruction of Freud, which is the main focus of the text, is enlightening but far too complex within the language used for the critique. The concepts of Freudian psychology are not that difficult to understand when presented in a fashion that lends itself to understanding. Many of his theories are paramount to understanding basic anthropological concepts, not to mention human psychology.

It is incredible to think someone read this book and thought - this is good to go for publication. Butler can absolutely not write and her concepts, when stripped of their intellectual facade, are quite basic.

the book is written wit a difficult language so not easy read. English ain't my first language so I thought its me but even my uni teachers ( native British) were schuked by elaborative language . its almost as author intended to make it difficult to understand

Great book highly recommend

An essential book, especially for all feminists and people interested in gender studies. Judith Butler is a particularly important scholar and this is one of her most important books

Very pleased with purchase. As described. Many thanks

Exactly as described. Thank you :)