ABSTRACT

Offering a concise yet comprehensive introduction to gender theory, this thought-provoking new book aims to make an intervention into the contemporary American paradigm of thinking gender and sexuality and offers a powerful challenge to the paradigm of social constructionism.

Within each gender paradigm there are unacknowledged truths. The controversial claim of this book is that queer theory and intersectionality – and, more broadly, the social constructionist paradigm – have reached a limit. Indeed, it is possible that they are becoming regressive political gestures. However, there are possibilities of moving forward in this new area of transformation and Rousselle claims that a new logic of gender invention is opening up a new paradigm of thought.

Part of the popular Routledge Focus on Mental Health series, this book will be of immense value to students and teachers who aim to understand in a basic way some of the various main paradigms, theories, and concepts within gender and sexuality studies. It will also be an important attempt to think beyond those paradigms and theories.

chapter 1|5 pages

Gender meta-theory

An in(ter)vention

chapter 2|7 pages

Theory as an antidote to chaos

chapter 3|10 pages

Thinking gender as a Marxist

Foundational ideas

chapter 4|12 pages

The social construction of gender

The case of queer theory

chapter 5|13 pages

Situating paradigms

From intersectionality to citational practices

chapter 6|10 pages

Interrogating intersectionality

chapter 7|15 pages

Psychoanalysis and gender

The Mobius strip

chapter 8|12 pages

Subject formations

chapter 9|9 pages

Trans* inventions

From anxiety to certainty