Jeffrey T. Nealon, Fates of the Performative: From the Linguistic Turn to the New Materialism

Abstract

"A powerful new examination of the performative that asks "what's next?" for this well-worn concept"-- Cover Page -- Thinking Theory -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface: Why the Performative? -- Part I: Genealogy of the Performative -- Chapter 1. The Truth Is a Joke?: Performatives in Austin and Derrida -- Chapter 2. Two Paths You Can Go By: Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick -- Chapter 3. The Bodacious Era: Thoreau and New Materialism -- or, What's Wrong with the Anthropocene? -- Part II: Performativity and/as/into Biopolitics -- Chapter 4. Biopolitics, Marxism, and Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century Chapter 5. What Is a Lecturer?: Performative, Parrhesia, and the Author-Function in Foucault's Lecture Courses -- Chapter 6. Literary RealFeel: Banality, Fatality, and Meaning in Kenneth Goldsmith's The Weather -- Conclusion: On the Returns of Realism and the (Supposed) Exhaustion of Critique -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author