Precarious Attachments: A Critical Reading of Judith Butler’s The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (1997)

Authors

  • Juntao Yang School of the Arts, Columbia University, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71113/JCAC.v1i2.352

Keywords:

subjection, attachment, subjectivity, feminism, queer

Abstract

Grounded in a close reading of Judith Butler’s The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (1997), this essay offers a critical intervention into her notion of “passionate attachment” and the a-priori, ontological assumptions that underwrite it. Instead of treating an infant’s relation to its earliest objects of attachment as empirically demonstrable, Butler provides little explicit warrant for this premise, thereby introducing a latent transcendental tension into the theory. The later discussion of “melancholy,” furthermore, does not so much extend the logic of attachment as expose a generative structure of negation that sits uneasily alongside the affirmative logic of attachment. By tracing the double movement and turning-points of attachment and melancholy in subject formation, I clarify the subtle moments within Butler’s argument and explore critical pathways for re-thinking agency inside the triadic structure of power–attachment–melancholy/anger.

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References

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Butler, J. (1997). The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford University Press.

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Published

2025-07-02

How to Cite

Yang, J. (2025). Precarious Attachments: A Critical Reading of Judith Butler’s The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (1997). Journal of Contemporary Art Criticism, 1(2), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.71113/JCAC.v1i2.352