Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Butler refuses to fix the body as primary, as antecedent to discourse. ‘The body posited as prior to the sign is always posited or signified as prior’ (1993: 30). We cannot have any access to the body except through discourse. Yet, this does not mean that the body can be reduced to discourse. Indeed, the body exceeds discourse, and reworks the very norms that would constrain it. Butler has as little patience for an idealism that would reduce all matter to signs as she does with a materialism that would reductively separate matter from signs. The former ignores the fact that matter cannot be created by discourse; the latter ignores the fact that matter is always and only materialised through discourse. Both remain blind to the simple truth that all signs are themselves material (1993: 15, 30).
For Butler, therefore, the body can never serve as an ontological foundation (Stone 2005: 11). The body cannot ground a theory of feminist politics any more than it can ground a theory of gender. Nonetheless, to say this is not to dismiss the body, nor is it to ignore the critics’ constant question, ‘what about the body?’ (1993: ix). While Butler rejects any theory grounded in an ontology of the body, she still finds something fundamental about bodies: bodies, for Butler, are vulnerable. A body is both dependent upon others and subject to violation by another, by others. Through our bodies we always remain exposed to others, and our very vulnerability ties us to others (2004b: 20, 22). In this sense, and only in this sense, we find something primary about the body, something fundamental, undeniable. This paper will demonstrate that Butler takes the body just as seriously – and, at times, perhaps much more seriously – than her critics.
The problem is not the body per se. What is lacking in Butler’s politico-theoretic project is not an attentiveness to the potential pain and suffering of bodies: Butler has been centrally concerned with this issue from the very beginning of her work. Rather, Butler’s critics ask after the materiality of the body, I think, because they are concerned about what Butler’s theory of gender does with/to sex. Butler’s critics, both implicitly and explicitly, worry most about the primacy and materiality of sex, and the epistemological grounding that it provides. More to the point: if sex is really gender ‘all the way down’, then is there no such thing as sex? And if everything is gender, then does the body no longer matter? I will try to reconstruct this implicit logic of the critics, to illustrate that the criticisms about ‘the body’ stem from a much deeper concern about the place of sex in Butler’s radical theory of gender.
As an answer to her critics, the title Bodies that Matter contains within it the straightforward assertion that bodies do matter. But the word ‘matter’ in the title also clearly carries a double meaning. In the text, Butler articulates a theory of materialisation: she shows how bodies matter in the sense of becoming materialised through discourse. Perhaps, however, what her critics want most of all is to know how, within a radical constructivist theory of gender, the body matters in the sense of being important, proving significant for both theory and politics. Butler was undoubtedly cognisant of the two senses of matter within the title that she herself chose. And yet, to answer this question concerning the second sense of matter requires a further exploration than Butler has explicitly provided of the role of ‘sex’ within a theory that proves sex to be subject to gender norms. If sex no longer serves as the ontological ground that gives rise to gender, then does sex simply disappear? And if it does not, then what role will it play?
Working with both the resources supplied by Butler herself (her writings) and those called on by her (the writings of Foucault and Beauvoir), this essay will theorise the body by way of reconstructing a Butlerian theory of sex/gender. The key to such a reconstruction will lie in insisting on two points simultaneously: 1) always stressed by Butler, sex is itself gendered and thus sex does not lie outside of gender norms, nor causally produce them, but is instead a product of those norms, and 2) not often emphasised or made clear by Butler, sex cannot be reduced to gender. The category of sex has a crucial role to play even within a radical theory of sex/gender that takes sex itself to be gendered. To gender sex is not to do away with sex. This point can be elaborated and explained within the frame of Butler’s project, even if she herself has not always been careful to stress it.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: The conflict for mental dominance between Mary and Doro, the progenitors of the Pattern that will inform humanity’s future, is an apt metaphor for exploring the consequences of slavery in America. Doro represents the continuing presence of the African past that haunts African Americans, and Mary represents the modern day African American who struggles to reconcile a history and a heritage she does not fully understand but that informs her life. Butler creates a thought-provoking neo-slave narrative and a powerful message about the power of the human mind to overcome adversity in Mary’s quest to free herself from the dominance of negative thought structures, to embrace positive conceptions of identity and heritage, and ultimately to establish her own mind.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: While many accounts of multicultural education rely upon claims about the character of identity, more often than not these accounts of identity remain underdeveloped. The purpose of this paper is to consider what implications a more substantive account of identification has for the practice of multicultural education. To do so, I bring the work of Judith Butler to bear on certain identity claims implied by Rob Reich’s conception of multicultural education.

Publication Type: School Poster
Abstract: In 2004, the Butler College of Pharmacy Curriculum Committee began curricular mapping. The faculty completed two survey instruments summarizing their courses and identifying which of the College’s Curricular Outcomes and specific content areas their courses addressed. During 2005, the Committee summarized the data and identified five curricular threads: (1) skills development for pharmacy operations, (2) communication skills, (3) quantitative and logical thinking, (4) application and uniformity of foundational principles, and (5) health and health systems management. During a 2006 retreat, faculty teams identified potential areas of collaboration and possible solutions to address gaps and redundancies related to each of the curricular threads.

The objective of this poster will be to present the mapping results related to one of these curricular threads: communication skills. Attention will be given to the following components: empathy, oral communication/counseling skills, interprofessional communication skills, and oral/written presentation and public communication skills. Over 25 student communication activities spanning the pre-professional and professional curricula have been identified. Specific examples emphasizing the collaborative and independent activities will be presented. These exercises reinforce student communication skills consistent with ACPE Standards 11, 12 and 13 and illustrate our College’s integrated cumulative approach to learning.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: A replication study was undertaken of a survey conducted by MacGeorge, Feng, Butler and Budarz (2004). Undergraduate students (N = 542) at a large eastern university completed survey asking them to evaluate a recent supportive interaction with another individual in which the student received advice. The advice content (i.e., usefulness, facilitation of coping, and absence of limitation) was evaluated in addition to several components of the advice source and advice interaction including perceived regard for face, receptiveness, message quality, and advice outcome (i.e., facilitation of coping, sufficiency of support, and intention to implement). Results indicate a similar pattern of results reported by MacGeorge et al. with several important concerns uncovered in the data. First, data from both the current study and a follow-up study (N = 64) suggest measurement concerns with MacGeorge et al.’s measure of sufficiency of support. Measurement concerns were also evident in the measure(s) of regard for face. Results are discussed and several concerns are articulated about using self-report study designs and possibility of rater bias. A call was also sounded for more replication studies in human communication research.