Judith Butler and Politics

The book enables insightful readings of Judith Butler’s groundbreaking treatment of the political in its most nuanced implications for the mapping of possible worlds and the　demand for radical equality. Reading (with) one of the most wide-ranging thinkers of our times, Zaharijević cogently grapples with stimulating questions of subjectivation, performativity, bodily lives, and the conditions of acting. * Athena Athanasiou, author of Agonistic Mourning: Political Dissidence and the Women in Black *
Adriana Zaharijević’s Judith Butler and Politics is excellent. It excels at so many levels: it is, scholarly, drawing on an extensive array of Butler’s own writings, as well as Butler’s critiques and interlocutors from the fields of philosophy, political theory, feminism, queer and postcolonial theory. Above all, it is politically astute and sensitive to the problem of violence. -- Elena Loizidou, Birkbeck College * Contemporary Political Theory *
Judith Butler and Politics offers a stimulating review of Butler’s work in light of their struggle to reduce violence. Reading Butler’s work as the insurrection at the level of ontology composed of philosophical and political commitment to rethinking the real and taking action represents an important contribution to understanding their work in broader demand for social transformation towards a liveable world. The thread of the body successfully carries this call sewing different parts of Butler’s thoughts together. -- Mária Mokrá, Institute of European Studies and International Relations * Slovenský národopis / Slovak Ethnology *
A valuable addition to the literature analysing the relationship between politics and ethics in Butler’s work -- Parisa Shams, The University of Western Australia * European Journal of Women's Studies *
Reading and grasping Butler is a demanding process, one that is never entirely straightforward or occurring in isolation. And interpreting Butler? Adriana Zaharijević has found a way to embrace Judith Butler’s work, demystifying it and presenting it in a manner that makes it more accessible and comprehensible. -- Marija Antić, Institut Ivo Pilar u Zagrebu * Croatian Sociological Review *
Butler's philosophy shows that we have not yet known a world in which our constitutive interdependence is used as a foundation of political bonding, but her critical analysis encourages us to think about what is today seen as impossible. Inspired by the desire of a different world, Zaharijević’s Judith Butler and Politics points directly to the transformative capacity of Butlerian thinking, pushing us forward along with the American philosopher to expand the realm of what is constituted as 'human' -- Clara Navarro Ruiz, Universidad Complutense de Madrid * Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas *
Considering the scope of Judith Butler and Politics, its arduous task, and especially the distinctive ways of writing and reading in which this task is carried out, one can conclude by circling back to Zaharijević’s very opening words in the Introduction. Indeed, ‘it is not very often that reading a book leaves us with a feeling that something in us has changed’, but reading Judith Butler and Politics might be one of those occasions. -- Nina Perger, University of Ljubljana * Theory, Culture and Society *
Written with care and rigour, the book is of high relevance for scholars and students of gender and sexuality studies, philosophy, political theory, social movement studies, and other related disciplines, contributing novel insights to the growing body of Butler scholarship. -- Christian Klesse, Manchester Metropolitan University * Gender and Justice *