Subverting the Self: Philosophical Inquiry and Literary Form in Judith Butler's Theory of Performativity

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Persian Literature & Foreign Languages, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, IRAN.

2 Department of English Literature- Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages-University of Tabriz-Tabriz-Iran

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between philosophical argument and literary form in Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, arguing that Butler’s critique of gender identity operates not only at the level of conceptual analysis but also through the rhetorical and stylistic structure of her writing. Focusing primarily on Butler’s major works, including Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter, the study analyzes how concepts such as performativity, subject formation, and agency are articulated through strategies of citation, repetition, metaphor, and textual displacement. Rather than treating Butler’s prose as a secondary stylistic feature, the article argues that her writing actively participates in the destabilization of essentialist understandings of gender and identity. Drawing on philosophical and literary analysis, and engaging discussions on the relation between literature and philosophy associated with thinkers such as Richard Rorty, the article demonstrates that Butler’s texts blur the distinction between theoretical discourse and performative enactment. The study further argues that Butler’s critique of the heterosexual matrix and fixed identity categories depends upon a form of writing that resists conceptual closure and stable meaning. By emphasizing the interaction between rhetorical form and philosophical content, this article seeks to move beyond descriptive accounts of Butler’s theories and offers a more focused interpretation of how textual practice itself becomes part of Butler’s politics of subversion and resignification.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Send comment about this article
CAPTCHA Image
Journal of Philosophical Investigations

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 07 June 2026

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics