Judith Butler: On Organizing Subjectivities

Sociological Review, Vol. 53, pp. 63-79, October 2005

28 Pages Posted: 30 Apr 2008 Last revised: 8 Jun 2009

Date Written: 2005

Abstract

In this essay, I evoke and explore Butler's potential contribution, providing a broad framework for her work, and, at the same time, focusing on specific concepts from her writings - performativity, iteration, and foreclosure - that have profound implications for researchers. Furthermore, pointing out philosophers working in the phenomenological tradition in which Butler trained, including influential precursors, colleagues, and contemporaries, establishes how issues raised in various fields can be recognized and comprehended in relation to Butler's work more generally. Butler's work (...) - radical as it may seem - responds to classic questions of ontology, philosophy of language, and epistemology. A phenomenological description aimed at opening access to Butler’s notion of the tropological inauguration of the subject – that is, the ‘turning back’ induced by a limiting boundary that brings subjectivity into experience – attempts to place Butler’s central concepts before the reader.

Keywords: Judith Butler, subjectivity, performativity, organization studies, phenomenology, power

JEL Classification: A14, B3, B 19, B31, O32, M19, Z10

Suggested Citation

Borgerson, Janet L., Judith Butler: On Organizing Subjectivities (2005). Sociological Review, Vol. 53, pp. 63-79, October 2005, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1126312

Janet L. Borgerson (Contact Author)

DePaul University ( email )

Institute for Business and Professional Ethics
Chicago, USA
United States
5857293075 (Phone)

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