Insubordinate Plasticity

Judith Butler and Catherine Malabou

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12147251
AutoresNatalie Helberg (0000-0001-7661-6424, University of Toronto, autor correspondente)
Ano2020
Volume35
Fascículo4
Páginas587-606
Data de publicação2020-01-01
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoHypatia (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0887-5367 • E-ISSN: 1527-2001
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/hyp.2020.34
OpenAlexW3091104611
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas12

In this article, I explore the relationship between performativity , as it appears in Judith Butler's work, and plasticity , as it appears in the work of Catherine Malabou. I argue that these concepts are isomorphic. Butler and Malabou both hold that resistance to contemporary forms of power, or “insubordination,” is contingent on a subject's ability to become other than what it is; Butler articulates this ability in terms of performativity, and Malabou articulates it in terms of plasticity. I reveal the social-constructivist dimension of Malabou's work while also making apparent the extent to which Butler's work, contrary to her own way of conceptualizing it, and hence surprisingly and uneasily, presupposes a biologically basic capacity for change. Plasticity is this biologically basic capacity. Both thinkers affirm the idea that insubordinate forms of transformation can be impeded by the discourse that conditions what a subject can think. I suggest that this is an insight that must be heeded, even as I seek to affirm a form of plasticity beyond discourse

Aesthetics · Biology · Epistemology · Performativity · Power (physics · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Subject (documents · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Philosophy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism

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