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Spilling All Over the “Wide Fields of Our Passions”: Frye, Butler, Wittgenstein and the Context(s) of Attention, Intention and Identity (Or: From Arm Wrestling Duck to Abject Being to Lesbian Feminist)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

I argue for a Wittgensteinian reading of Judith Butler's performative conception of identity in light of Marilyn Frye's analysis of lesbian as nonexistent and Butler's analysis of abject. I suggest that the attempt to articulate a performative lesbian identity must take seriously the contexts within which abjection is vital to maintaining gender, exposing the intimate link between context and the formulation of intention, and shedding light on possible lesbian identities irreducible to abjection.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by Hypatia, Inc.

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