Butler and Ethics

Abstract

Judith Butler is best known for Gender Trouble (1990), the book that introduced the idea of gender performativity. However, with the publication of Giving an Account of Oneself in 2005, it appeared as if her work had taken a different turn, away from considerations of sex, gender, sexuality and politics and towards ethics. This collection of 10 essays offers the first sustained evaluation of that alleged ethical turn. Bringing together a group of internationally renowned theorists, the volume will explore issues such as whether there has been an 'ethical turn' in Butler's work or whether, in fact, the increasing emphasis on ethics is merely the culmination of ideas inherent in her earlier work: how ethics relates to politics and how both connect to her increasing concern with violence, war and conflict. Butler and Ethics will break new ground in scholarship on Butler and will also advance on going debates about materiality and the body, biopolitics, affect theory, precariousness and subjectification. It explores the relation between politics and ethics in Butler's writings. It explores Butler's understanding of the body in relation to both politics and ethics, feminist and non feminist. It looks at work from the full span of Butler's career right up to her most recent book, Frames of War.