The Death of Leviathan: Feminist Dilemmas and State Phobia

This essay takes the growing popularity of “hijab/refugee porn” in the West as a point of departure to revisit the historical feminist debate on pornography. While Catharine MacKinnon criticizes pornography as an eroticization of violence and advocates state intervention, Judith Butler warns of the dangers of state censorship, alternatively proposing nonjuridical forms of opposition. Instead of taking up unequivocal positions for or against the state, this essay addresses the political costs of evacuating the state as a site of redress of racial and sexual injustice and examines the risks of state phobia for postcolonial queer--feminist politics.