Abstract

In this dissertation I examine the relationship of various concepts and theories of subjectivity to political praxis. Specifically this dissertation seeks to determine which concept of subjectivity is most useful for grounding an emancipatory feminist politics. My central thesis is that the postmodern feminist conception of subjectivity that conceives the subject as performative is precisely the conception of subjectivity most adequate to the project of emancipatory politics. In the first part I analyze the writings of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Michel Foucault, looking at how they conceptualize subjectivity and how their ideas of political practice follow from those articulations. In the second part, I examine various reconstructions and deconstructions of these positions in the writings of three contemporary feminist philosophers: Nancy Fraser, Jane Flax, and Judith Butler. In this part I defend the postmodern position against Fraser's criticism that it is ultimately a philosophy marred by relativism. I argue that one can have an engaged political philosophy that is not grounded upon pre-given normative validity claims. I further argue that Butler's concept of subjectivity as performativity is particularly effective for an emancipatory politics, yet I criticize Butler for tending to privilege language at the expense of analyzing the practices of everyday life in the context of the material conditions which inform them. I conclude that the performative self that is informed by concrete material conditions is the concept of self most adequate to the project of emancipatory feminist politics