Queer Rigidity
Habit and the Limits of the Performativity Thesis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2230080 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pearl Brilmyer, S Pearl Brilmyer (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 610-639 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0093-1896 • E-ISSN: 1539-7858 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/730351 |
| OpenAlex | W4399326001 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 17 |
This article explores the contributions of nineteenth-century philosophers of habit to understanding the rigidity of desire. Focusing on the work of Félix Ravaisson, I argue that Of Habit (1838) makes sense of something that much queer theory fails to address in its investment in the subversion of identity: the tendency of desire to return to known objects and follow well-worn paths, a tendency that does not always result in the affirmation of norms or the consolidation of power. Of Habit offers a new set of terms—crystallization, patterning, and necessity, among others—for comprehending the limits of desire's flexibility without naturalizing gender or sexuality as permanently fixed or inherent. In so doing, it offers an alternative to queer theories that, indebted to Judith Butler's performativity thesis, attribute the rigidities of sexual life entirely to the productive power of cultural prohibitions and discursively constructed norms
Aesthetics · Art · Performativity · Queer · Queer theory · Rigidity (electromagnetism · Sociology · Structural engineering · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Cinema and Media Studies · Engineering · Gender Studies
In the break
Alice Doesn’t
Before Queer Theory
Trans* Plasticity and the Ontology of Race and Species
The Unfungible Flow of Liquid Blackness
Habit Changes
The Question of Habit in Theology and Philosophy
Queer Texts, Bad Habits, and the Issue of a Future
Fixation and Regression in the Psychoanalytic Theory of Homosexuality
Queer Performativity
Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe
Techniques of the body∗
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |