Bodies That Matter

"As a philosopher of gender [Judith Butler] is unparalleled." -- Village Voice "Butler gives us a new way to think about the materiality of the body in the discursive performity operative in the materialization of sex. Following a common move in postmodern feminism, Butler sets out to demolish the sex/gender distinction that has formed the mainstay of the de Beauvorian and radical feminism's notion that gender, as a cultural construction, could be critiqued and politicized against the givenness of the body's biological sex...What is new in Bodies That Matter is Butler's attempt to write more directly about race." -- Signs "Extending the brilliant style of interrogation that made her 1990 book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity a landmark of gender theory/queer theory, Butler here continues to refine our understandings of the complexly performative character of sexuality and gender and to trouble our assumptions about the inherent subversiveness of dissident sexualities... indispensable reading across the wide range of concerns that queer theory is currently addressing." -- Artforum "What the implications/limitations of 'sexing' are and how the process works comprise the content of this strikingly perceptive book... Butler has written a most significant and provocative work that addresses issues of immediate social concern." -- The Boston Book Review "A brilliant and original analysis." -- Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers University, USA "...a classic." -- Elizabeth Grosz