About
Judith Butler is an American philosopher whose work on gender, sexuality, and power has profoundly influenced critical theory and feminist studies. Born in Cleveland, she earned her PhD in philosophy from Yale in 1984. Her major work, Gender Trouble (1990), introduced the theory of gender performativity, challenging binary categories. A professor at the University of California, Berkeley, she has written more than twenty books, translated into over twenty-seven languages. Her reflections on precarity, violence, and ethics have marked contemporary thought. She has received numerous awards, including the Adorno Prize in 2012.
* 1956-02-24
Major works
- Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)essay
- Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (1993)essay
- Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (2004)essay
- Undoing Gender (2004)essay
- The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020)essay
Key milestones
- 1990Publication of Gender Trouble, a foundational work on the theory of gender performativity.
- 2012Receives the Theodor W. Adorno Prize from the City of Frankfurt for contributions to feminist and moral philosophy.
- 2020Elected president of the Modern Language Association.
Themes
Gender performativityQueer theoryPrecarity and vulnerabilityEthics and violenceCritique of power
Sources: vcresearch.berkeley.edu · thebritishacademy.ac.uk · ucop.edu
