Given the power of the live experience, MIK SABIERS recommends Jon Spencer’s new album
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The prisoners of gender
CAL MCBRIDE recommends an accessible and erudite study that aims to link the struggle for gender rights with the wider critique of neoliberal capitalism
OPPOSITES COLLIDE: Protest in Oxford where Professor Kathleen Stock is due to speak at the the Oxford Union, May 30 2023
Reviews of T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, Tamikrest, and Dub Colossus
The bard celebrates two other fine practitioners of the art, and laments a lost brewer
This right-wing conspiracy theory is used to justify the coercive measures against gender, race and labour rights that best serve capitalism, attests GAVIN O’TOOLE
KENNY MONROSE recommends a new exhibition that highlights the significance of Black British music
ANGUS REID is bowled over by an exuberant film about the making of Keith Jarrett’s legendary concert
Who’s Afraid of Gender
Judith Butler
Allen Lane, £25
ANYONE dipping even the most tentative toe into the currently tempestuous waters of gender discourse won’t be able to venture too far without encountering the name Judith Butler.
Works like Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter have become key texts in global gender studies, even as many of their theories have been misinterpreted, or just plain misunderstood over the years. That being so, it’s useful that rather than taking another deep dive into the intricacies of gender-oriented cultural philosophy, this book instead confronts head-on the current and heated so-called culture war that has sprung up in public discourse around gender.
Butler has a not wholly undeserved reputation for writing in dense academese but they’ve thankfully reined in that tendency for the most part here to produce a largely reader-friendly text.
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