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True Identities: From Performativity to Festival

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Lauren Swayne Barthold
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Abstract

Some feminists have criticized Judith Butler's theory of performativity for providing an insufficient account of agency. In this article I first defend her against such charges by appealing to two themes central to Hans‐Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics. I compare her emphasis on the sociohistorical nature of agency with Gadamer's insistence on the historical nature of knowledge, and I examine the significance Butler assigns to repetition and note its affinities with Gadamer's conception of play. In the final part of the article I argue that in spite of providing an adequate account of agency, Butler's theory of performativity provides no way to allow us to evaluate performances. I show how Gadamer's account of festival, which builds on his concept of play, is useful in helping us make sense of how we might delineate true from false performances, and thus identities.

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Open Issue Content
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Hypatia , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , Fall 2014, pp. 808 - 823
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by Hypatia, Inc.

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Footnotes

I presented a condensed version of this paper at the 2013 annual conference of the Northern New England Philosophy Conference. My thanks to those who raised insightful questions and comments. I am also grateful to the two anonymous Hypatia reviewers who offered extremely helpful suggestions for strengthening my argument.

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