Abstract
Since the 20th century， psychoanalysis has been both a discursive resource for and shackle on feminism， which is prominently manifested in the “sex-centrism” orientation. Although queer theory has broken the hegemony of heterosexuality and enriched the research on the differences of marginalized groups， sex-centrism has been a sustaining problem. The sex-centrism orientation is manifested in at least two aspects： the linguistic or theoretical positioning sex at the core of the understanding of subject， the obsession with the sexual repression hypothesis and anti-repression strategies such as subversion， exposure， and disenchantment. In her critical reflection on “Theory，” Sedgwick revised Butler's gender performativity by using Tomkins's theory of affects and Klein's psychology of object relations， and she proposed her own theory of queer performativity. Queer performativity is based on the subject model of affects， which treats reparation as its fundamental theoretical foundation， and concerns the affective experience of shame. Sedgwick not only found another way to conceptualize the subject's rich personal and emotional experience， but also provided a more productive theoretical paradigm.
Keywords
sex-centrism, queer performativity, Sedgwick, Tomkins, Klein
First Page
107
Last Page
114
Recommended Citation
Huang, Xinyao. 2023. "Out of Sex-Centrism： A Study of Sedgwick's Queer Performativity." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 43, (1): pp.107-114. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol43/iss1/13
