Butler and Ethics

Moya Lloyd is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Professor of Politics in the Department of Government at the University of Essex.

Moya Lloyd’s edited volume Butler and Ethics represents a valuable contribution to scholarly literature on the work of Judith Butler. One merit of the volume is that, far from speaking in a uniform voice, the authors take up a diversity of positions on Butler’s thought, diverging with respect to the value of central concepts (such as recognition, livability, grievability and vulnerability), the status of normativity and Butler’s ‘ethical turn', and the strength or radicalness of her politics. Common themes include the role of affect in ethics, the relationship between politics and ethics, political demonstration, contestation or appeal and Butler’s appropriation of other thinkers (e.g., Althusser, Levinas). The volume also performs the helpful service of forging connections between Butler’s more recent work (e.g., Giving an Account of Oneself, Frames of War, Parting Ways and Dispossession) and the concepts at the heart of her earlier work, such as performativity, intelligibility and subjection.

• Notes on ContributorsIntroductionMoya LloydSignifying Otherwise: Liveability and LanguageNathan GiesUndoing Ethics: Butler on Precarity, Opacity and ResponsibilityCatherine MillsButler’s Ethical Appeal: Being, Feeling, Acting ResponsibleSara RushingViolence, Affect, EthicsBirgit SchippersSensate Democracy and Grievable LifeFiona JenkinsTwo Regimes of the Human: Butler and the Politics of MatteringDrew WalkerThe Ethics and Politics of Vulnerable BodiesMoya LloydSubjectivation, the Social, and a (Missing) Account of the Social Formation: Judith Butler’s ‘Turn’Samuel A. ChambersNotes on ContributorsIndex