ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides the nation as a source of moral authority, invariably staking their claims in the name of 'English' or British women, but these identities had many different meanings. It describes the knowing or 'knowledgeable' subjects, who reflected on and responded to their changing political experience and the politics of their lives. The chapter explains new ways of reading the radical tradition and political subjectivity. It examines how the rhetoric of sexual difference was mobilised in the Chartist movement to forge new forms of political alliance and opposition, and how, in turn, the power of this rhetoric was affected by the political contests between Chartists and the authorities. Butler clearly distinguished, here and elsewhere, between the agents of the People's progress and the suffering body of the people.