In "Bodies That Matter," Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most "material" dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in "Gender" "Trouble," Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain "sex" from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She offers a clarification of the notion of "performativity" introduced in "Gender Trouble" and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; "Paris is Burning," Nella Larsen's "Passing," and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of "performativity" and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory.

《权力的精神生活:服从的理论》对黑格尔、尼采、弗洛伊德、福柯、阿尔杜塞等有关服从理论的论述进行了比较研究，以读书笔记的形式阐述了作者对服从的观点：权力在主体的屈从与生产中的双重作用与权力所采取的精神形式。作为权力的一种形式，服从是自相矛盾的。被一种外在于自身的权力所支配是权力所采取的一种熟悉的和苦恼的形式。但是，为了发现“某人”是什么，某人作为一个主体的形成，所依赖的权利却完全是另一种权力。按照福柯的说法，如果我们理解了权力同样形成了主体，它就提供了它存在的条件和它欲望的轨迹。权力不仅仅是我们的存在所依靠的东西，它也形成了自反性。利用黑格尔、尼采、弗洛伊德、福柯和阿尔杜塞，这本富有挑战性和明晰的著作提供了主体形成的理论，它阐明了矛盾的社会权利的精神作用。

"For the most part, feminist theory has assumed that there is some existing identity, understood through the category of women, who not only initiates feminist interests and goals within discourse, but constitutes the subject for whom political representation is pursued."