The Descriptive Purchase of Performativity
Author(s)
Munro, Andrew
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2012
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In this paper, I examine the politics of performativity that Judith Butler develops in Excitable Speech. In particular, I assess the usefulness of Butler's talk of performativity for describing discursive events involving victimised subjects. I propose that performativity's descriptive purchase is best gauged by foregrounding its presuppositions, and that these last include a Peircean conception of semiosis and a rhetorical postulate of genre.In this paper, I examine the politics of performativity that Judith Butler develops in Excitable Speech. In particular, I assess the usefulness of Butler's talk of performativity for describing discursive events involving victimised subjects. I propose that performativity's descriptive purchase is best gauged by foregrounding its presuppositions, and that these last include a Peircean conception of semiosis and a rhetorical postulate of genre.
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Journal Title
Culture, Theory and Critique
Volume
53
Issue
1
Subject
Cultural Studies not elsewhere classified
Cultural Studies
Historical Studies
Philosophy