Butler and Ethics

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 that her work had taken a different turn: away from considerations of sex, gender, sexuality and politics, and towards ethics.

Bringing together a group of internationally renowned theorists, this volume asks: has there been an ‘ethical turn’ in Butlers work or is the increasing emphasis on ethics the culmination of ideas in her earlier work? How do ethics relate to politics in her work, and how do they connect to her increasing concern with violence, war and conflict?

Butler and Ethics breaks new ground in scholarship on Butler and will also advance on-going debates about materiality and the body, biopolitics, affect theory, precariousness and subjectification.

Birgit Schippers • Catherine Mills • Drew Walker • Fiona Jenkins • Moya Lloyd • Nathan Gies • Samuel A. Chambers • Sara Rushing

• Explores the relation between politics and ethics in Butler’s writings
• Explores Butler’s understanding of the body in relation to both politics and ethics, feminist and non-feminist
• Looks at work from the full span of Butler’s career up to Frames of War