Flexner Book Club Blog

2011 Mary Flexner Lecturer: Judith Butler

November 3, 2011
by Jessica Lee
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Externalized Pathology and Internalized Identity

I work with refugees in Philadelphia. Butler’s chapter Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification makes me reconceptualize my clients’ struggles in the resettlement process. Butler expands on Freud’s idea of melancholia into a discussion of melancholic incorporation, arguing that identity results from disavowed … Continue reading

October 13, 2011
by Mary Zaborskis
Comments Off on Queer Children: Losing What’s Been Lived?

Queer Children: Losing What’s Been Lived?

I’ve found Judith Butler’s theory on melancholia and it’s relation to gender, sexuality, and gender performativity as outlined in “Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification” useful in some of my own research on queer children in literature. Bryn Mawr’s Hanna Holborn Gray Fellowship … Continue reading

October 13, 2011
by Sara Alcid
Comments Off on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and Masculinity as Repudiated Homosexuality

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and Masculinity as Repudiated Homosexuality

Many approaches to Gender and Sexuality Studies encourage us to divorce gender from sexuality, so while reading “Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification,” it felt somewhat “illegal” to be examining them in a way that considered them to be co-defining.  Of course, throughout … Continue reading