Cultural theory has taken a 'performative turn', shifting its focus from the textual nature of the world to how the social world is narrated, its subjects are subjected and its relations are ritually enacted. The rise of performativity in cultural theory - spearheaded in many ways by feminist theory - has profound implications for the way we think about ethics and politics. Indeed, as it concerns all aspects of 'difference', it reshapes the ways we think about the continuities and interruptions of social life itself. Drawing on thinkers such as Foucault, Butler, Levinas, Arendt and Deleuze, "Culture and Performance" explores the development and direction of the notion of performativity. It interrogates the idea of subjectivity, the possibility of ethics and, beyond this, how such abstract questions relate to the world of political action. It traces the implications of the concept, and discusses the critique that is emerging from a renewed interest in creativity.

This volume is based on the first set of formal conversations which brings together the dynamic philosophies of two eminent thinkers: Judith Butler and Alfred North Whitehead. Each has drawn from a wide palette of disciplines to develop distinctive theories of becoming, of syntactical violence, and creative opportunities of limitation. In bringing together internationally renowned interpreters of Butler and Whitehead from a variety of fields and disciplines philosophy, rhetoric, gender and queer studies, religion, literary and political theory the editors hope to set a standard for the relevance of interdisciplinary philosophical discourse today. This volume offers a unique contribution to and for the humanities in the struggles of politics, economy, ecology, and the arts, by reaching beyond their closed circles toward understandings that may serve as the basis for the activation of humanity today. Considered together, Butler and Whitehead delineate a whole new cadre of approaches to long-standing problems as well as never-before asked questions in the humanities.

Winner of British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 1993 Within feminism incest has often been subsumed under a discussion of sexual violence and abuse. Yet, important as this is, there has been little account of how feminist work itself relates to other ways of talking about and understanding incest.
In Interrogating Incest Vikki Bell focuses on the issue of incest and its place in sociological theory, feminist theory and criminal law. By examining incest from a critical Foucauldian framework she considers how feminist discourse on incest itself fits into existing ways of talking about sex. Closely surveying the historical background to incest legislation and the theoretical issues involve, Vikki Bell delineates their practical implications and shows what uncomfortable questions and important dilemmas are raised by the criminalisation of incest.

Winner of British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 1993 Within feminism incest has often been subsumed under a discussion of sexual violence and abuse. Yet, important as this is, there has been little account of how feminist work itself relates to other ways of talking about and understanding incest.
In Interrogating Incest Vikki Bell focuses on the issue of incest and its place in sociological theory, feminist theory and criminal law. By examining incest from a critical Foucauldian framework she considers how feminist discourse on incest itself fits into existing ways of talking about sex. Closely surveying the historical background to incest legislation and the theoretical issues involve, Vikki Bell delineates their practical implications and shows what uncomfortable questions and important dilemmas are raised by the criminalisation of incest.

Since the end of the last dictatorship in 1983, Argentina's visual artists and art-activists have been central to campaigns to demand the criminal prosecution of those initially granted amnesty and to a variety of commemorative projects. In The Art of Post-Dictatorship: Ethics and Aesthetics in Transitional Argentina Vikki Bell examines this involvement and intervention. She argues that the problematics that arise within the aesthetic realm cannot be understood solely through an art-historical approach; instead, they must be understood as a constitutive part of a broader collective endeavour. In this sense, the 'art' of post-dictatorship is not something that belongs to art or the artists themselves, but is about how the subjectivities and imaginations of new generations are constituted and entwined with questions of response, ethics and justice. It concerns how people align themselves between the past and the future. This book will be an invaluable resource for those studying the law, politics, art and sociology of contemporary Argentina as well as those concerned more widely with transitional justice and the politics of memory.

Since the end of the last dictatorship in 1983, Argentina s visual artists and art-activists have been central to campaigns to demand the criminal prosecution of those initially granted amnesty and to a variety of commemorative projects. In "The Art of Post-Dictatorship: Ethics and Aesthetics in Transitional Argentina" Vikki Bell examines this involvement and intervention. She argues that the problematics that arise within the aesthetic realm cannot be understood solely through an art-historical approach; instead, they must be understood as a constitutive part of a broader collective endeavour. In this sense, the art of post-dictatorship is not something that belongs to art or the artists themselves, but is about how the subjectivities and imaginations of new generations are constituted and entwined with questions of response, ethics and justice. It concerns how people align themselves between the past and the future.

This book will be an invaluable resource for those studying the law, politics, art and sociology of contemporary Argentina as well as those concerned more widely with transitional justice and the politics of memory."

Cultural theory has taken a 'performative turn', shifting its focus from the textual nature of the world to how the social world is narrated, its subjects are subjected and its relations are ritually enacted. The rise of performativity in cultural theory - spearheaded in many ways by feminist theory - has profound implications for the way we think about ethics and politics. Indeed, as it concerns all aspects of 'difference', it reshapes the ways we think about the continuities and interruptions of social life itself. Drawing on thinkers such as Foucault, Butler, Levinas, Arendt and Deleuze, "Culture and Performance" explores the development and direction of the notion of performativity. It interrogates the idea of subjectivity, the possibility of ethics and, beyond this, how such abstract questions relate to the world of political action. It traces the implications of the concept, and discusses the critique that is emerging from a renewed interest in creativity.

Reading feminist theory as a complex imaginative achievement, Feminist Imagination considers feminist commitment through the interrogation of its philosophical, political and affective connections with the past, and especially with the `race' trials of the twentieth century. The book looks at: the 'directionlessness' of contemporary feminist thought; the question of essentialism and embodiment; the racial tensions in the work of Simone de Beauvoir; the totalitarian character in Hannah Arendt; the 'mimetic Jew' and the concept of mimesis in the work of Judith Butler.

Vikki Bell provides a compelling rethinking of feminist theory as bound up with attempts to understand oppression outside a focus on 'women'. She affirms feminism as a site and mode of making these connections.

This book explores belonging as a performative achievement. The contributors investigate how identities are embodied and effected, and how lines of allegiance and fracture are produced and reproduced. Questions of 'difference' are tackled from a perspective that attends to the complexities of history and politics. Drawing on sociology, philosophy and anthropology, this collection brings together leading commentators, including Judith Butler, Paul Gilroy and Arjun Appadurai, as well as a range of new scholars. It examines questions of visuality, political affiliation, ethics, mimesis, spatiality, passing, and diversity in modes of embodied difference. The volume advances conceptual and theoretical issues through testing various propositions around specific examples or questions. What emerges is a rich engagement with the complexity of contemporary forms of belonging.