Document Type
Article
Abstract
[First paragraph]
Given the increasing significance of questions of identity, subjectivity and selfhood in contemporary postmodern western cultures, it is important to begin acknowledging how these questions are reflected in contemporary media and television and to develop new strategies by which to analyse television characters in terms of identity and subjectivity. The scope for analysing television series' characterizations through recent postmodern and poststructuralist theories of non-essentialist, non-foundationalist subject/identity performativity has not yet been considerably explored. It is my contention here, however, that such a method both reflects the representation of self and identity transformation in new television series as well as provides new ways in which to consider popular media forms in their longevity. The performativity theories of Judith Butler are particularly useful, and not only as one among a constellation of poststructuralist philosophies on subjective identity, but as a theory which figures identity as non-voluntarist play invoking the language of act and theatrics within the constraints of the discursively-given.
Repository Citation
Cover, Rob. "From Butler to Buffy: Notes Towards a Strategy for Identity Analysis in Contemporary Television Narrative." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2004, pp. 1–28. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol4/iss2/3
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Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, Metaphysics Commons, Television Commons