Performativity

In this book James Loxley offers a concise and original account of critical debates around the idea of performativity, traces the history of the concept through the work of such influential theorists as J.L. Austin, John Searle, Stanley Fish, Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man and Judith Butler, examines the implications of performativity for fields such as literary and cultural theory, philosophy, performance studies, and the theory of gender and sexuality, emphasises the political and ethical implications that its most important theorists have drawn from the notion of performativity, suggests ways in which major debates around the topic have obscured its alternative interpretations and uses.