A man for all seasons: Derrida-cum-‘queer theory’ or the limits of ‘performativity’

Abstract

This piece is a critical and polemical discussion of the concept of performativity as used in some quarters of ‘queer studies’. It shows that the usage Judith Butler and her followers make of this concept relies heavily on the work of Jacques Derrida but fails to do justice to it. Such lack of rigour manifests itself in a lack of philosophical originality and thus leaves ‘queer studies’ in a rather precarious position.

Notes

1. Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons, London: Methuen, 1995, p 1.

2. Bolt, A Man For All Seasons, p 70.

3. Bolt, A Man For All Seasons, p xiii.

4. Judith Butler, ‘Critically Queer’, in Bodies That Matter, New York: Routledge, 1993, p 226 and p 228. Until otherwise indicated, all references are to this work, and are given as page numbers in parentheses in the text.

5. On this point, see Alexander García Düttmann, At Odds With Aids, trans. C. Curtis and P. Gilgen, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996, p 56 f.

6. Jacques Derrida, La carte postale, Paris: Flammarion, 1980, p 19 [Engl.: The Post Card, trans. A Bass, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, p 15; the translation does not render the fact that this is a male student]—all translations of quotes from Derrida's texts are mine; references to existing English translations are given within brackets—AGD.

7. ‘No tinc més remei que suïcidar-me o vestir-me de dona.’ (Francesc Pujols, La tardor barcelonina [Autumn in Barcelona], Barcelona: Edicions de la Tempestad, 2005, p 29.)

8. Derrida, La carte postale, p 129 [Engl.: p 118].

9. Jacques Derrida, Glas, Paris: Galilée, 1974, p 96 [Engl.: Glas, trans. J P Leavy Jr and R Rand, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986, p 83].

10. Derrida, Glas, p 30 [Engl.: p 23].

11. Derrida, Glas, p 148 [Engl.: p 130]. Derrida speaks of a ‘logic of antherection’ on p 157 [Engl.: p 138].

12. Jacques Derrida, ‘Circonfession’, in Geoffrey Bennington and Jacques Derrida, Jacques Derrida, Paris: Seuil, 1991, p 150 [Engl.: ‘Circumfession’, trans. G Bennington, in Jacques Derrida, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993, p 159]. Here, Derrida himself refers to the ‘episode of the grape cluster’ he mentions in Glas—see Derrida, Glas, p 211 [Engl.: p 188].

13. Jacques Derrida, ‘Geschlecht—différence sexuelle, différence ontologique’, in Psyché, Paris: Galilée, 1987, p 402 and p 414 [Engl.: ‘Geschlecht—Sexual Difference, Ontological Difference’, in Between the Blinds. A Derrida Reader, ed. P Kamuf, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991, p 387 f and p 401]. In relation to sexual difference, Derrida stands opposed to a philosopher such as Alain Badiou who begins with positing the irreducibility of ‘duality’ in matters of love and sexuality. For Badiou, ‘queer theory’ can only be yet another example, albeit a prominent one, of the ‘bio-materialism’ based on the equation ‘existence = individual = body’, or the doctrine that there are only languages and bodies, and no truths (see Alain Badiou, Logiques des mondes [Logics of the Worlds], Paris: Seuil, 2006, p 10 f).

14. Derrida, Glas, p 97 [Engl.: p 84]. This same passage is partially quoted in an essay by Jean-Luc Nancy on the ‘back’ and the ‘behind’ of deconstruction (Jean-Luc Nancy, ‘Borborygmes’, in La pensée dérobée, Paris: Galilée, 2001, p 55, footnote 1).

15. Derrida, La carte postale, p 55 [Engl.: p 48].

16. Derrida, La carte postale, p 35 [Engl.: p 30—the translation does not render the allusion to sexual intercourse in the expression ‘s'envoyer’].

17. Derrida, La carte postale, p 25 [Engl.: p 20].

18. Gilles Deleuze, Pourparlers, Paris: Minuit, 1990, p 15 [Engl.: Negotiations, trans. M Joughin, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, p 6].

19. Butler, ‘Critically Queer’, p 229.

20. Butler, ‘Critically Queer’, p 226.

21. Butler, ‘Critically Queer’, p 230.

22. Bolt, A Man For All Seasons, p 78.

23. Bolt, A Man For All Seasons, p 87.

24. Butler, ‘Critically Queer’, p 229.

25. Bolt, A Man For All Seasons, p 57.

26. Bolt, A Man For All Seasons, p 77.

27. Jacques Derrida, Force de loi, Paris: Galilée, 1994, p 35, p 61 and p 144 [Engl.: ‘Force of Law’, trans. M Quaintance, in Acts of Religion, ed. and with an introduction by G Anidjar, New York: Routledge, 2002, p 243, p 257 and p 297].

28. Bolt, A Man For All Seasons, p 100.

29. Jacques Derrida, ‘Signature Event Context’, in Limited Inc., Paris: Galilée, 1990, p 44 [Engl.: ‘Signature Event Context’, trans. J Mehlman and S Weber, in Limited Inc, ed. G Graff, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988, p 17].

30. Michael Fried, ‘Art and Objecthood’, in Art and Objecthood. Essays and Reviews, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, p 167. Fried also appeals to conviction in his Absorption and Theatricality, where he associates it with truth (Michael Fried, Absorption and Theatricality, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, p 104). Interestingly, in Kant after Duchamp, Thierry de Duve, another art historian, uses the concept similarly in order to mark the limits of a conceptualist approach to art (Thierry de Duve, Kant after Duchamp, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996, pp 324–325).

31. Walter Benjamin, ‘The Task of the Translator’, trans. H Zohn, in Selected Writings, vol 1, ed. M Bullock and M W Jennings, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996, p 254.