Department of Philosophy
Site Contents
Brian Kanouse
Graduate Student
| Email: | |
I am a Ph.D. student in the Joint Philosophy/Communications program. My general area of study is in 19th and 20th Century Continental Philosophy, with specialization in Phenomenology and Existentialism. The past two years I have been focusing on critiques of Phenomenology as found in the work of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and currently, Gilles Deleuze. My current interests have led me to the work of Judith Butler and her arguments in relation to gender performativity and the development of resistance to dominant Discourses through performative speech acts. Through this work, I have been attempting to reconcile Heidegger’s ontological claims as to the gender neutrality of the human being with the more radical social constructivist critiques of ontology. My interest in so doing is to give firm philosophical grounding to Butler’s radical claims in relation to gender performativity and the politics of political recognition and legitimization in social institutions.