Judith Butler's Precarious Politics

Critical Encounters

Judith Butler has been arguably the most important gender theorist of the past twenty years. This edited volume draws leading international political theorists into dialogue with her political theory.

Each chapter is written by an acclaimed political theorist and concentrates on a particular aspect of Butler's work. The book is divided into five sections which reflect the interdisciplinary nature of Butler's work and activism:

• Butler and Philosophy: explores Butler’s unique relationship to the discipline of philosophy, considering her work in light of its philosophical contributions
• Butler and Subjectivity: covers the vexed question of subjectivity with which Butler has engaged throughout her published history
• Butler and Gender: considers the most problematic area, gender, taken by many to be primary to Butler’s work
• Butler and Democracy: engages with Butler’s significant contribution to the literature of radical democracy and to the central political issues faced by our post-cold war
• Butler and Action: focuses directly on the question of political agency and political action in Butler’s work.

Along with its companion volume, Judith Butler and Political Theory, it marks an intellectual event for political theory, with major implications for feminism, women’s studies, gender studies, cultural studies, lesbian and gay studies, queer theory and anyone with a critical interest in contemporary American ‘great power’ politics.