Zugl.: München, Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2005

The main theoretical thrust of my project involves the political uses of parodically performing shame and shaming rituals in resisting normative regulation. I argue that parodic performances of this negative affect—traditionally deployed to erase, obscure, and regulate queers—can expose how shame regulates the gender/sexuality performances of straight people as well as queers. I view this project primarily as a tactical shift from the parodic performances outlined by Judith Butler in texts like Gender Trouble, and I feel that the shift is important as a counter measure to increasing homonormative inclusion of (white, middle class) gays and lesbians into straight or neoliberal society. The first section of my thesis is dedicated to exploring theories of homonormativity. I work primarily from Michael Warner’s The Trouble with Normal, which is a queer polemic, and Lisa Duggan’s The Twilight of Equality, which contextualizes homonormativity in the cultural project of neoliberalism. Homonormativity is, in essence, the opening of cultural space in mainstream society for a certain group of gays and lesbians—those who are “the most assimilated, genderappropriate, politically mainstream portions of the gay population” (Duggan 44). As Warner discusses at length, the shift from queer to conservative gay interests has shifted attention from issues like HIV/AIDS research and physical protection of queers to gay marriage and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which are causes that primarily benefit the gays and lesbians already most assimilated to straight culture. Section II focuses on the work of Judith Butler and other theorizations of parody. Butler’s theory suggests that gender and sexuality consist of a set of continuously repeated performances, and that by performing gender one is constituted as a subject. Butler argues that it is impossible to step outside gender—to stop performing, as it were —because there is no agency prior to the imposition of gender. She locates the only possibility for resistance to gender as a socially regulatory myth structure in the failure to properly perform gender, or in performing in such a way that gender is exposed as always already performative. I have paired Butler’s theory with Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Parody, which examines the uses, limitations, and value of artistic parody. These two theorists, of course, have different goals, which complicates the potential for combining their work. In the final section I develop my own theory, which largely takes its cue from Butler’s notion that we can resist gender/sexuality regulation through parodic performance. But, whereas Butler argues for parodic performances of gender/sexuality, I suggest the usefulness of parodying shame and shaming rituals. Shame—the social imposition of it, as well as the desire to avoid it—has long been a force maintaining proper behavior in the largest sense, but I am concerned specifically with the regulation of gender and sexual performances. Queers (understood broadly) and women have long been the targets of shame, while straight males have long been the performers of shaming rituals—mockery, brutal laugher, violence. What I suggest is that through an appropriation and parodic reinterpretation of these shaming rituals and shame itself, queers can expose the centrality of shame in repressing not only queer existence and performance, but in restricting the performative possibilities of straight people. This new notion of performative resistance is especially important as some gays and lesbians enter straight society and become subject to its shaming restrictions, but also become complicit in shaming those queers still outside the realm of homonormative possibilities

No description available.

Female apologetic behaviour in sport includes any behaviour by female athletes that emphasizes a female athlete’s femininity. This behaviour is in response to the masculine and/or lesbian stereotypes associated with female sport participation. This thesis analyzed the female apologetic within Canadian women’s rugby. Attention was paid to the relationship of level of competition, racial identity, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status with female apologetic behaviours. In-depth interviews with nine Canadian, female rugby players from various levels of competition, races and sexual orientations were conducted to explore these negotiations. Judith Butler’s idea of gender performativity was used as a research lens. The participants stated that they did not currently engage in any apologetic behaviour, and it was found that level of rugby, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status did not impact female apologetic behaviours. Rugby was found to be a safe place for the participants to perform resistant versions of femininity.

Female apologetic behaviour in sport includes any behaviour by female athletes that emphasizes a female athlete’s femininity. This behaviour is in response to the masculine and/or lesbian stereotypes associated with female sport participation. This thesis analyzed the female apologetic within Canadian women’s rugby. Attention was paid to the relationship of level of competition, racial identity, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status with female apologetic behaviours. In-depth interviews with nine Canadian, female rugby players from various levels of competition, races and sexual orientations were conducted to explore these negotiations. Judith Butler’s idea of gender performativity was used as a research lens. The participants stated that they did not currently engage in any apologetic behaviour, and it was found that level of rugby, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status did not impact female apologetic behaviours. Rugby was found to be a safe place for the participants to perform resistant versions of femininity.

<p> "Recitations: The Critical Foundations of Judith Butler's Rhetoric" explores the textures and patterns in the writing of Judith Butler. Notoriously difficult, Butler's rhetoric has garnered much scholarly and journalistic literature, and yet, to date, there remains no book-length study on this topic. At the same time, Butler scholars have tended to theorize her style as "subversive." Such a defense readily connects with Butler's general effort to contour and challenge the lines of social and cultural intelligibility, lines that deem some identities, especially sexual and racial ones, unacceptable. However, I argue that the framework of "subversion" ultimately reduces some of the generative tensions central to Butler's ideas, which I draw out by focusing on the ambiguity of "recitation."</p> <p> Drawing on cultural and literary theory, particularly at the intersections between poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism, queer theory, and semiology, I reframe Butler's writing through the questions of inheritance, paradigms, and critical alliances. Focused on three major works, I identify and research the thought of her key sources, and so the dissertation doubles as a study of G.W.F. Hegel (Butler's Subjects of Desire (1987), Sigmund Freud and Michel Foucault (The Psychic Life of Power (1987), and Emmanuel Levinas (Giving an Account of Oneself(2005). Focusing on the ways that Butler re-articulates and revises the language of these influential writers, I develop a theory of Butler's style of critique that seeks to move discussions of her writing past the notions of "subversion" and "liberation." More broadly, I interpret the ambivalent scenes of identification and disavowal that Butler's writing stages to shed light on problems of modern critical subjectivity, marked by the inheritance of intellectual, social, and cultural structures that may trouble us, but that also form our identities and our relations to others.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Due to the standards and values that characterized our society through history women have had a hidden place in the historiography. By a qualitative media analysis these values have been analysed to find out how   women with the right to vote moved the values and how they were described in newspapers and magazines.  The study is from Judith Butlers interpretation of how the gender perspective went through a process of normalization. The linguistic dimension of women has been analysed for two reasons firstly to discover how women are described as political subjects in 1911 and 1921 and how this can have affected perceptions of gender and value.  In my study I came to the conclusion that their political interests and achievements most often were overshadowed because of their gender 1911 more than 1921.  During 1921 it was still more important that women were women than men were men. Secondly I have studied how the women through magazines tried to tone down the fact that they were ground breakers. The study resulted in that the women often described their female characteristics in relation to their political relevance to give the reader the impression that femininity and politics belong together. These phenomena showed up more often in magazines than newspapers and were interpreted as these connections between femininity and politics were a part woman’s leverage to get the right to vote. The study contributes to the research of women’s history and a wider understanding for how language and journalism can contribute to perceptions of genus.

Judith Butler é mais conhecida como autora de Gender Trouble, no qual problematiza a maneira pela qual se pensava o gênero até então. A partir daí, ela publica diversas obras nas quais aprofunda e desenvolve sua filosofia, calcada em larga medida em considerações inicialmente propostas por Michel Foucault, partindo de sua noção de um poder produtivo dos sujeitos. Butler investiga os termos que desenham o campo de possibilidade dos sujeitos, desnudando como nossas noções de realidade são informadas pela linguagem, que indica apenas descrever aquilo que efetivamente molda e orquestra, chamando por transformação social e propondo uma ampliação da categoria de humano. / Judith Butler is better known for her best-seller Gender Trouble, that aims at troubling how gender has been thought until then. Afterwards she publishes several works that deepen and further develop her philosophy, largely based on considerations Michel Foucault has originally made, taking into account his idea of a power that positively produces the subjects. Butler inquires the terms that draw the field of possibility of the subjects, unveiling how our notions of reality are informed to us by language, that denotes to merely describe that which it actually frames into existence and orquestrates. She calls for social transformation and proposes an enlargement of the category of human.

Judith Butler é mais conhecida como autora de Gender Trouble, no qual problematiza a maneira pela qual se pensava o gênero até então. A partir daí, ela publica diversas obras nas quais aprofunda e desenvolve sua filosofia, calcada em larga medida em considerações inicialmente propostas por Michel Foucault, partindo de sua noção de um poder produtivo dos sujeitos. Butler investiga os termos que desenham o campo de possibilidade dos sujeitos, desnudando como nossas noções de realidade são informadas pela linguagem, que indica apenas descrever aquilo que efetivamente molda e orquestra, chamando por transformação social e propondo uma ampliação da categoria de humano. / Judith Butler is better known for her best-seller Gender Trouble, that aims at troubling how gender has been thought until then. Afterwards she publishes several works that deepen and further develop her philosophy, largely based on considerations Michel Foucault has originally made, taking into account his idea of a power that positively produces the subjects. Butler inquires the terms that draw the field of possibility of the subjects, unveiling how our notions of reality are informed to us by language, that denotes to merely describe that which it actually frames into existence and orquestrates. She calls for social transformation and proposes an enlargement of the category of human.

No description available.