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Conference, seminar, reading workshop and course

By radicalizing theoretical instruments introduced by Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Beauvoir and Wittig, Judith Butler was able to, at the end of the 1980s, carry out one of the most incisive philosophical readings of gender and sexual identity to date. The idea that gender is far from being an anatomical or psychological truth appears in her classic Gender Trouble where it is treated as cultural fiction; as a performative effect resulting from the stylized repetition of acts that then become natural and produce the illusion of substance. This inedited definition went on to provoke what we consider today a "performative twist" in feminist study. Its critical power would reach into the far-off domains of post-colonial theory, visual study, and literary analysis.

In the past few years, in Bodies that Matter, Antigone's Claim, and her most recent publication, Undoing Gender, Judith Butler has developed some of the most provocative reflections on the legal status of sexual identity, the political organization of inter- and trans-sexuality, the normalization of the body, the transformation of parent/child, couple and familial institutions, the rights of sexual minorities, as well as identity in the face of cultural, legal and religions imperatives. This seminar, accompanied by a variety of operative reading groups in institutions throughout the city, will allow participants to approach a complex philosophical work which will help us to understand recent transformations in feminism and critical theory: from gay/lesbian identity politics to queer theory and transgender movements.

Judith Butler is a Professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

Organized in conjunction with the Espai Francesca Bonnemaison, the Social Psychology Department (UAB), the Centre Dona i Literatura/ Càtedra UNESCO Dones, develop.m.ent and cultures (UB) and the Cos i Textualitat group (UAB, UdG, UM)


Programme

From 18 May to 8 June

Conference by Judith Butler

WEDNESDAY, 6 JUNE
Espai Francesca Bonnemaison
7.30 pm

Sexual politics and the limits of secularism
Conference by Judith Butler

Seminar by Judith Butler THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, 7-8 JUNE
MACBA
From 6-9 pm

Undoing Gender. Identity, sexuality and secularism
Seminar by Judith Butler

Reading workshop FRIDAY, 18 MAY and 1 JUNE, AND TUESDAY 5 JUNE
MACBA
From 5-7 pm

Butler Inn
Reading workshop on the writings of Judith Butler presented by Beatriz Preciado, philosopher and professor of Gender Theory at the University of Paris VIII-Saint Denis, and professor of Gender Technologies in the MACBA's PEI open program, 2006-2007.

Course

SATURDAY, 19 MAY AND 26, AND 2 JUNE
Espai Francesca Bonnemaison
From 10 am to 1 pm

Theory and Praxis: Judith Butler's thoughts relative to the politics of equality
Course by Patricia Soley-Beltrán, M.A. in Cultural History from the University of Aberdeen, Ph.D. from the University of Edinborough, thesis entitled: Transsexualism and the Heterosexual Matrix: a Critical and Empirical Study of Judith Butler's Performative Theory of Gender.

Conference:
Espai Francesca Bonnemaison. Sant Pere més Baix 7, 08003 Barcelona. Free entrance. Limited space.

Course:
Information and enrollment Espai Francesca Bonnemaison at edona [at] diba [dot] cat or by phone: 934 04 91 07

Seminar and reading workshop:
Information and enrollment at the MACBA at educacio [at] macba [dot] cat or by phone: 934 12 14 13 (mornings)


Related

Activities

Audios

Judith Butler. Deshacer el género. Identidad, sexualidad, secularismo (1ª parte)
Deshacer el género. Identidad, sexualidad, secularismo (2ª parte)
Son[i]a #42. Patricia Soley–Beltrán
23.05.2007