Judith Butler and Marxism: The Radical Feminism of Performativity, Vulnerability, and Care

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What would a Butlerian Marxism look like Marxist criticisms of Butler range from careful comparisons of forms to the total dismissal of an unpolitical, merely cultural anarchy. None of these criticisms, however, focuses on what seems to most closely unite these two projects: the universal abolition of the universal. While Marxist communism is focused on the abolition of value and property, Butler is consistently concerned throughout their corpus with the abolition of the subject as the universal form of social relations, an abolition staged by way of a relational ontology and ethics. Their methodologies for achieving abolition, however, vary hugely. Butlers sees the performativity of subjects and power as an opportunity for differential assembly, Marxists are primarily concerned with the working class as a revolutionary vanguard that withdraws its labor from production.
Judith Butler and Marxism explores the possibility of a Butlerian Marxism, understood as abolitionist performativity, differential vulnerability, and generalized practices of care. The essays in this volume attempt to actualize the antagonistic persistence of social particulars, pursuing the abolition of the domination and violence that pervade society with increasing brutality. The three sections of this volumeare structured according to three pivotal political concepts in Butlers corpus: performativity, vulnerability, and care. Each essay contributes to a possible mutual development of Butlers and Marxisms concern with assembly, interdependence, and refusal, forming a revolutionary politics of care.
This is the first book to fully study the contentious link between the vastly influential projects of Judith Butler and Marxism.

Reviews

Judith Butler and Marxism demands confrontation, not comfort. It exposes the systems that dominate us all, where Butlers radical theories collide with Marxisms fiercest critiques. Care and vulnerability, far from passive states, emerge as tools of resistance capable of standing against capitalist brutalities. Their force continues to resist compliance. -- Sanja Bojanic, University of Rijeka
Is Judith Butler a Marxist Probably not. Can their work enrich Marxist thought I once doubted it, but Mason and Moros Judith Butler and Marxism has convinced me otherwise. This anthology reveals how Butlers work can deepen Marxist inquiry while simultaneously addressing important tensions between Butler's project and Marxist perspectives. -- Evelina Johansson Wiln, associate professor of gender studies, rebro University, Sweden
Judith Butler and Marxism offers critical theorists, long interested in the creative friction of reading Butler and Marx together, a fascinating collection of new essays. Reinterpreting performativity, vulnerability, and care, these essays advance a variety of Butlerian Marxisms with which to imagine new emancipatory assemblies for our times! -- Andrs Henao-Castro, associate professor of political science, University of Massachusetts Boston
Is Judith Butler a Marxist philosopher Hardly. However, as the contributions to this volume show, one may easily say that Butler is an ally to Marxist philosophy and that there can be no thinking of radical politics without their thought, especially in the domain of everyday life, life we have to live before the conditions for the revolution are met. Performativity read as a curse and a gift, interdependence read as internationalism, mutual aid and a method, vulnerability framed as agency, grievability framed in terms of value all of these aim at expanding the domain of an entrenched debate, testing the possibilities of thinking together instead of thinking apart, or against. Judith Butler and Marxism gathers scholars who struggle to reframe the terms of the debate, honoring Butlers intellectual and political wisdom and vigor. -- Adriana Zaharijevic, principal fellow, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, Serbia

Author Bio

Elliot C. Mason is a communist writer and organizer based in Stockholm. He is the author of Poetics of Value: Temporalities of Sociality and Subjection in the Value-Form, and The Instagram Archipelago: Race, Gender, and the Lives of Dead Fish, and the editor of a South Atlantic Quarterly special issue dossier, Vol. 124:1, titled Organizing Care in Swedens Crisis.

Valentina Moro is assistant professor in the Philosophy department at Stony Brook University. Her research intersects feminist philosophy, political theory, and classical antiquity. She authored the monograph Il teatro della polis. Filosofia dellagonismo tragico and co-edited the special issue of The European Journal of English Studies titled Feminist Responses to Populist Politics.