Michel Foucault’s 1969 essay “What is an Author?” sidesteps the stormy arguments surrounding “intentional fallacy” and the “death of the author,” offering an entirely different way of looking at texts. Foucault points out that all texts are written but not all are discussed as having “authors”. So what is special about “authored” texts? And what makes an “author” different to other kinds of text-producers? From its deceptively simple titular question, Foucault’s essay offers a complex argument for viewing authors and their texts as objects. A challenging,...

Jacques Derrida’s Structure, Sign, and Play is one of the most controversial and influential philosophical texts of the 20th century. Delivered at a conference on structuralism at Johns Hopkins, the lecture took aim at the critical and philosophical fashions of the time and radically proposing a world in which meaning cannot be pinned down or traced to an origin, but instead is continuously shifting, fleeting, and open to play. Hailed by many as a watershed in philosophy and literary theory, Derrida’s lecture has shaped both disciplines. At once dense, brilliant, and humorous,...

Judith Butler's Gender Trouble is a perfect example of creative thinking. The book redefines feminism's struggle against patriarchy as part of a much broader issue: the damaging effects of all our assumptions about gender and identity.

Looking at the factionalism of contemporary (1980s) feminism, Butler saw a movement split by identity politics. Riven by arguments over what it meant to be a women, over sexuality, and over class and race, feminism was falling prey to internal problems of identity, and was failing to move towards broader solidarity with other liberation...