On Sun, 30 Aug 1998, Mike Yates wrote:
>
> There is an interesting article about Judith Butler in the most recent "Lingua
> Franca" magazine. I would be interested to hear what those on the list who
> are familiar with her work think of it. One thing which struck me was that
> she seems to have gone from Hegel to Althusser to Foucault and the like
> without really taking on Marx and his critique of Hegel, his theory of
> alienation, etc.
No, Butler wouldn't be much interested in Marx's work on alienation. I checked out her Marx cites in *Gender Trouble*, and she's only interested in Marx's insistence on taking seriously historical context. She's also interested in reification, although she doesn't cite the *German Ideology.* I don't think Marx and Butler are compatible--she's pretty much purely a cultural theorist and a particularist--Marx is too grand theory for her tastes, I think.
But there's a bigger point to be made on the Butler/Marx connection (or lack thereof). In Gender Trouble, we notice that blurring gender categories in and of itself is revolutionary--to parody gender is enough. But she ignores the commodification and commercialization of drag, how easily it lent itself to being appropriated by folks like Madonna and Dennis Rodman. Her drag queens are bourgeois; able to afford the luxury of an ironic gender identity. In seeing gender fucking as parodic, she fails to note the complext political economic reality of transgender communities. For those interested in a more nuanced view of this from within the transgender community, I recommend Leslie Feinberg's "novel," *Stone Butch Blues*.
It's really too bad Butler doesn't do the political economic analysis. I think she's right on in a lot of ways--her explication of the construction of gender as performance speaks is right on target.
Butler had a piece in the Jan/Feb *New Left Review* (#227) entitled "marx and the merely cultural." You might find it interesting--I've only glanced through it or I'd give a synopsis.
Frances