Performance All the Way Down

Richard O. Prum is the William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology at Yale University, and the head curator of vertebrate zoology at the Yale Peabody Museum. He is the author of The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us, one of the New York Times’s “10 Best Books of 2017” and a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

• List of IllustrationsPrologue Taking Birds Seriously A Humanistic TurnAn Ornithologist for Intersectionality1. Performance All the Way Down Material FeminismsA Performative ContinuumWhat Is the Role of Metaphor in Biology?What Is at Stake?The Stakes for Evolutionary BiologyMind the GapWhy Queer Biology?Where Are We Going?2. Critical Concepts What Are Male and Female?Historical OntologySex Is a HistorySex Difference versus Sexual DifferenceSex and RaceSexual Development and DifferentiationThe Sexual PhenotypeSex Determination and Sex ReversalDiscourseAgencyQueer and Queering3. Gender Performativity What Is Performativity?Elements of PerformativityPerformativity and Trans ExperienceBetween Butler and Barad4. The Enactment of the Biological Self Genes and DevelopmentWhat Is Molecular Discourse?Want to Go to the Movies on Friday?How Discourse Becomes Genetic Action within CellsThe Choreography of Gene ExpressionThe Performative Phenotypic LandscapeCanonical versus Performative PathwaysHow Does the Body Regulate Growth over Space?What Is the Role of Physical Forces in Development?Performativity of Cellular DiscourseAre Genes Causes?Agency in Developmental BiologyCitationality and HomologyPosthuman PowerPhysiology and ImmunityNeurobiology and PsychologySexual SelectionWhat Is Not Performative in Biology?Why Performative Biology Now?5. How Do Our Sexual Bodies Develop? The Role of ChromosomesOn Gene NomenclatureHow Do Gonads Differentiate?Reproductive Tract DevelopmentGenital DevelopmentPost-embryonic Sexual DevelopmentSexual Development Summary6. Variations in Our Sexual Development Terminology and the Framing of Embodied Sexual VariationMoving beyond PathologyChromosomal Contributions to Differences in Sexual DevelopmentGenetic Variations in Gonad DevelopmentX Chromosome InactivationGenital and Reproductive Tract DevelopmentNoncoding Genetic VariationHow Does the Environment Affect Sexual Development?Queer Science7. How Evolution Generates Sexual Variability The Evolution of SexEvolutionary Variability of Sexual Development InitiationWhy Sexual Differentiation Mechanisms Are Generatively QueeringSexually Disruptive SelectionEvolution of the Molecular Discourse of Sexual DevelopmentEvolution of Sexual TransitionEvolution Is Incompatible with Sexual EssencesNorms and InnovationPlacental PerformativityLimits of the Binary Bottleneck8. The Future of Performative Biology Performative Scientific HypothesesPerformativity of Illness and DisabilityRecalibrating CausalityBiology Is Ready to Think PerformativelyPluralism and the PhenotypeWhat Is Evolutionary Biology About?9. Performance All the Way Up Sexual Reproduction Is an Intra-actionA Posthuman Genealogy of Performative DiscourseIs There Gender in Nature?“What Is Sex?” RevisitedToward a Scientific/Cultural Concept of Gender/SexPerformative Perspectives on Transsexual ExperienceSex and Race as Scientific ApparatusesSex and Race Categories in Biomedical ResearchPost-disciplinary Material FeminismsAn Intellectually Queer Space in ScienceAcknowledgmentsAppendixes Appendix 1. Material FeminismsAppendix 2. Acquired ImmunityAppendix 3. Current Models of the Genotype-Phenotype RelationshipAppendix 4. ModularityAppendix 5. Genetic AssimilationAppendix 6. Why Gene-Level Selection Is InsufficientAppendix 7. Internal Selection NotesBibliographyIndex

“Readers of [Prum’s] earlier work, including his 2017 book, The Evolution of Beauty, will find themselves intrigued by his continued engagement with feminist science studies—and he has done his homework. . . . Performance All the Way Down contains a lot of big ideas, both because of the biological content Prum strives to convey to his readers and because of the sophisticated nature of the feminist theory he mobilizes. . . . To understand the full scope of Prum’s vision, I encourage you to read it in full.”