Introduction

This essay provides an introduction to the special issue of differences titled Unaccountably Queer, which commemorates the twentieth anniversary of Judith Butler’s contribution to moral philosophy, Giving an Account of Oneself (2005). Through Butler’s work, the introduction theorizes queer metarelationality as a vernacular ethical practice that is vital to queer life. Reframing queer theory’s debates over the antisocial thesis, the essay argues that Giving an Account of Oneself offers valuable insight for contemporary debates over critique and postcritique, queer and trans kinship, and the relationship between ethics and politics. The essays in the special issue consider Butler’s Giving an Account of Oneself in relation to a range of fields, specifically queer theory, Black studies, trans studies, disability studies, postcolonial theory, feminism, psychoanalysis, life writing, and narratology.