Judith Butler 286

Judith Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has had a significant influence on the fields of feminist, queer, and literary theory, philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics. She is perhaps best known for her works Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex,” where she challenges the sex/gender distinction and develops her theory of gender performativity. Indeed, Butler’s conception of gender performativity has shaped the scholarship of an entire generation in feminist and queer studies.