Barbara Claire Freeman is Associate Professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University, and author of The Feminine Sublime. Performativity and Performance, ed. A Parker and E. K. Sedgwick, Routledge. Performance in theater studies and performativity in gender studies/queer theory are both at the heart of contemporary crucial debates. This book provides a context for these dicussions as well as some cutting-edge work by critics in both fields. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, Judith Butler, Routledge In her most recent book, Butler proposes a speech act theory of verbal injury that challenges conventional ideas aobut what speech does and how it functions. Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories, Peggy Phelan, Routledge In her most recent enactment and theorization of performative writing, Phelan engages in conversations with queer theory, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis. Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography, David M. Halperin, Oxford Quite simply the best book on Foucault written to date. Homographesis: Essays in Gay Literary and Cultural Theory, Lee Edelman, Routledge To quote Barbara Johnson: "What is original and groundbreaking about Edelman's work is his ability to think about highly charged political-sexual issues in rhetorical and logical terms that put in question traditional notions of rhetoric and logic." Return to the Writers Read List

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