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 →

This week’s essay made me think of power and politics. I’m not going to pretend that I understood all of it, but two pieces stick out to me: — Breaking news for homophobic, closeted politicians!: “The act of renouncing homosexuality … Continue reading →

In “Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification” Butler presents a “stark and hyperbolic construction of the relation between gender and sexuality” (p. 248) that turns on the necessity of the repression of same-sex desire in order to inhabit an unstable gender of “masculine” … Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

I spent the last week in a program comprised of participants from the Class of 2015 and sophomore, junior, and senior student facilitators. The program, Dimensions of Diversity, featured workshops on religion, race, country of origin, gender, and sexuality. With … Continue reading →