On Tue, 9 Jul 1996, Samuel A. Chambers wrote:
> I assume this question was directed toward me, and not Jeff, since the original
> claim is mine--or at least it's Butler's. There may be some confusion in the
> formulation, because of the phrase "sexed bodies." In my original post I
> followed the above quote by saying that, " Butler and Foucault agree that we
> have "sexed bodies," but it is precisely discursive practices that "sex" those
> bodies--and moreover (and this is Butler's real insight) there is no "sexing"
> before the body." If I interpreted Jeff's position correctly, he claimed to
> accept the idea that gender and sexuality can be discursively constructed while
> still maintaining a body (with a sex) that exists and endures prior to this
> discursive construction. It is at this originary "before construction" that
> Butler takes direct aim. I can elaborate on this argument with a passage from
> "Gender Trouble," but I don't have it with me right now.
Whoops! Sorry to mis-attribute the assertion. If and when you do
have the time and passage together, an elaboration would be
interesting...>
Darlene Sybert
http://www.missouri.edu/~engds/index.html
University of Missouri, Columbia (English)
*****************************************************************************
A discourse may poison, surround, encircle, imprison
or liberate, heal, nourish, fertilize. -Irigaray
******************************************************************************
> I assume this question was directed toward me, and not Jeff, since the original
> claim is mine--or at least it's Butler's. There may be some confusion in the
> formulation, because of the phrase "sexed bodies." In my original post I
> followed the above quote by saying that, " Butler and Foucault agree that we
> have "sexed bodies," but it is precisely discursive practices that "sex" those
> bodies--and moreover (and this is Butler's real insight) there is no "sexing"
> before the body." If I interpreted Jeff's position correctly, he claimed to
> accept the idea that gender and sexuality can be discursively constructed while
> still maintaining a body (with a sex) that exists and endures prior to this
> discursive construction. It is at this originary "before construction" that
> Butler takes direct aim. I can elaborate on this argument with a passage from
> "Gender Trouble," but I don't have it with me right now.
Whoops! Sorry to mis-attribute the assertion. If and when you do
have the time and passage together, an elaboration would be
interesting...>
Darlene Sybert
http://www.missouri.edu/~engds/index.html
University of Missouri, Columbia (English)
*****************************************************************************
A discourse may poison, surround, encircle, imprison
or liberate, heal, nourish, fertilize. -Irigaray
******************************************************************************