The Trouble with Antinormativity

Bibliographic Data

ID4927883
AuthorsAnnamarie Jagose (0000-0001-5642-0934, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume26
Issue1
Pages26-47
Publication date2015-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
Venuedifferences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1040-7391 • E-ISSN: 1527-1986
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/10407391-2880591
OpenAlexW2334970836
LanguageEN
Citations received42
References cited15

It is widely presumed in queer theory today that the political value of the field lies in its antinormative commitments. A historically framed attentiveness to the context in which antinormativity came to define the queer theoretical project, however, raises the possibility that queer theory's conventional commitments to antinormativity need to be reconsidered. As part of that project, this essay traces the elaboration of the norm in Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, reading it against what is often taken as its inspiration, Michel Foucault's understanding of normalization in The History of Sexuality, volume 1. Butler's description of how norms work and, more particularly, how norms might be subverted is radically inconsistent with Foucault's account of the processes of normalization that characterize modern power. This inconsistency allows us to see that, despite its apparent singularity, antinormativity is not a homogenous thing except in its field-founding force for queer theory

Epistemology · Human sexuality · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Queer · Queer theory · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Anthropology · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Gender Studies · Law · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology