HECK YEAH, JUDITH BUTLER!

justsomeapples: I’m not sure why I’m not posting this on hyjb...

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:44:45 -0500

I’m not sure why I’m not posting this on hyjb first, but here is a clip of the documentary Examined Life. Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor are in it, and basically what happens is they kick ableism in the gonads.

(This has nothing to do with the video but it’s 5 AM and I’m still awake. Why this is, I don’t know.)

progressivefriends: seltzerlizard: Sarah Palin: “America’s...

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:37:26 -0500

progressivefriends:

seltzerlizard:

Sarah Palin: “America’s Enduring Strength” (by Sarah Palin)

I couldn’t get through the whole video. When she tangented into talking about “our country, our exceptional country, so vibrant with ideas and passionate exchange and debate of ideas” after a cursory thirty seconds of phony concern and mourning, I nearly threw up in my mouth a little. She’s a cold and callous person, an amoral talking head with a bizarre need for attention and barely any brains to get it in appropriate ways. Even little kids are taught the difference between good attention and bad attention. She wants to run rampant and never have to deal with the aftermath. She wants to play in the power sandbox of America and she doesn’t care how much sand she spills. She expects someone else to clean up after her. I have no trust for her whatsoever. What a hollow and empty pseudo-philosophy she embraces. It is empty rhetoric designed to toss as many keywords at people as she can until she gets something out of it. She looks like a deer in the headlights. I wish her a peaceful and happy retirement from public life. Go away, Sarah Palin.

I follow this guy and he’s great, but noticed how he was able to discus this without saying “fuck.” He’s classy too.

A question I've been wanting to ask

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 04:02:00 -0500

In 1998, Philosophy and Literature’s now-defunct “Bad Writing Contest” chose Judith Butler as their winner for a sentence she wrote in Further Reflections on Conversations of Our Time.

Here is the sentence:

“The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.”

My question is to anyone who is reading this, because I’m curious. - What are your thoughts? What’s your initial reaction to this sentence?

Let me know! Thanks.

The myth of the "myth" of gender equality by Laurie Penny (from a blog at newstatesman.com)

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 03:47:54 -0500

*This post is not entirely about Judith Butler or her work, but has mention of and reference to her, & also brings up some relevant things.

“Posted by Laurie Penny - 08 January 2011 10:53

The Daily Mail gets excited about yet another attempt to put women in their place.

Lay down your placards, ladies: the fight for equality is over, and we can all go back to the kitchen. The Centre for Policy Studies has just released a “study” entitled “Feminist myths and magic medicine” that claims that there is no evidence that men are paid more than women, that where there is evidence of sex discrimination that evidence doesn’t matter, and that inequality is okay because some women actually choose it. Predictably, the Daily Mail has gone mental, expansively declaring the joyful news that “gender equality is a myth”.

The report’s author, Dr Catherine Hakim, has spent several years positioning herself as the only academic who can save this sick society from the scourge of feminism, one terrifyingly painted-on eyebrow permanently cocked at what she calls the “feminist myths” of equality legislation and “family-friendly” employment policies, presenting her table-rattling propaganda for right-wing think tanks as objective academic research. Hakim, who may or may not have actually met another woman, is best known as the face of “preference theory”, the wildly original notion that differences in work outcomes between men and women in the developed world are not the result of enormous, straining patriarchal guns held to the head of every single female in the job market, but because women and girls make “substantively different career choices” from men, opting for part-time work and shorter hours that better enable them to juggle paid work with the pressures of childrearing that still fall largely upon the shoulders of women. It is a sad indictment of the state of modern gender relations that this is seen, by Hakim and her many breathless devotees in the right-wing press, as some sort of staggering insight rather than weary confirmation of the status quo.

“Unfortunately, feminist ideology continues to dominate thinking about women’s roles in employment in the family,” writes Hakim, in a section of this entirely unbiased report entitled “Twelve Feminist Myths”, before coming to the conclusion that, because many women actually choose to work longer, more gruelling hours for less pay in order to raise families alone, “Equal opportunities policies have succeeded,” and all outstanding quota systems and equal pay. She also opines that the pay differential is entirely women’s fault, and that in fact many women and girls just want to marry rich men who will take care of them, and that that choice - being a free and laudable consumer choice - should also be applauded.

There is, however, a substantial difference between choice and empowerment. Choice is not the same thing as control, and not everyone who has a choice has freedom. Some choices are incredibly difficult, like the choice, faced by nearly all women in the developed world, between giving children the time they need, giving paid employment the time it needs, or - in most cases - frantically juggling the two whilst attempting to
retain some some semblance of independent selfhood and sociability. Some choices are distressing, like the choice between professional and personal fulfilment that still mars the lives of many women in a way that it simply never has for men. Presenting these painful decisions as benign lifestyle choices is not just tarting up a hideous social stalemate in the language of consumer indulgence: it’s actively cruel.

In one key respect, of course, Dr Hakim is right. Equality legislation can only go so far if it does not challenge the frameworks of a profoundly unequal system, and there is only so far that one can crowbar women into a labour scheme that already exploits men before something starts to strain to snapping point. On the question of Hakim’s loathed “family-friendly” policies, for instance, one can mandate all the maternity leave one likes, but as long as the labour of childcare is still undervalued, underpaid and done largely by women who are expected to be grateful for any concessions made to their “lifestyle choices” by benevolent bosses, “outcomes”, in the language of Hakim’s report, will continue to be skewed in favour of men, and women will continue to face unpleasant choices that do real harm to their lives and ambitions. Equal pay for equal work is not, whatever soft liberal faux-feminists claim, the one goal of the women’s equality movement - more important to the substance of women’s lives is what Judith Butler called “the right to equal work itself”.

These observations on the limitations of equality legislation might seem to echo Hakim’s, but the difference is that I am a revolutionary feminist and Dr Catherine Hakim is a recalcitrant hack academic with a personal vendetta against women who do not know their place and who would not know real social justice if it whacked her over the head with a huge glass ceiling. Her conclusions, lavishly lapped up by the Mail and the Telegraph, are that because legislative reshuffling has not solved equality, we can and should entirely abandon the notion of equality in the home and the workplace. Others, myself included, would rather take this as a signal to tear this unequal labour system into tiny bits and replace it with something that treats human beings as creatures with agency, dignity and pride.

The real problem with gender quotas in executive pay and employment is not that they are unnecessary, but that they have been coopted by the right to convince the public that something is actually being done about sex inequality. It is breathtaking hypocrisy for Theresa May to promise to put more women on the boardrooms of big companies at the same time as helping to engineer public sector and welfare cuts that will force single mothers to rely on their partners for financial support and abandon millions of women to poverty and unemployment. One cannot ape the postures of liberal feminism whilst rolling women’s rights back two decades and expect to be taken seriously as Equalities Minister by anyone with a pulse - not even in a government that considers the boardroom its core constituency.

It’s time we all stopped obsessing over the glass ceiling, not because it doesn’t matter,but because there are tens of millions of women huddled in the basement, shut away from power and public concern. Focusing our attention on the glass ceiling distracts us from the fact that the basement is rapidly flooding, and the women who have to live there want more than “choice” - they want real control over their lives.”

Judith Butler to (possibly) join Columbia University's English & Comparative Literature Department

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:17:27 -0500

Judith Butler to (possibly) join Columbia University's English & Comparative Literature Department :

This was interesting to read. The article was revised at one point to inform readers that it was moreso a probability than something definite.

Source/credit: Capital New York, writer Zachary Woolfe

"Judith Butler: War Empathizer" (from Utne Reader)

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 04:29:00 -0400

"Judith Butler: War Empathizer" (from Utne Reader):

Hey followers! How have you all been? I apologize for not updating as frequently; I’ve been really busy with school (it’s actually 4:26 AM as I type this, and I just finished catching up on some math homework a few minutes ago). I hope you all showed your support on Spirit Day!

Also, here’s an article from Utne Reader, which discusses Butler & her book Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?. I’ve posted things before that have discussed the book, but I thought this article was also particularly interesting.

Source/credit: Utne Reader, Mike Rowe- author

"Judith Butler 101: One Is Not Born a Queer Theorist, One Becomes One" (from September 23, 2010)

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 01:13:36 -0400

"Judith Butler 101: One Is Not Born a Queer Theorist, One Becomes One" (from September 23, 2010) :

I definitely enjoyed reading this post. The user who posted it on Autostraddle wrote it in a way that was informative, but presented the information in a way that was accessible, plus it was a fun read. & I definitely liked how she included pictures that highlighted some of the points she was writing about. Go check it out!

Source/credit: Autostraddle (user- Julia)

pridenotprejudice: dearchild7171: frozen-in-tyme: speakingofno...

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 16:36:06 -0400

pridenotprejudice:

dearchild7171:

frozen-in-tyme:

speakingofnonsequiturs:

breethescarybear:

socoamaretto-lime:

cometobeinfinite:

xpartypoisonxx:

giaface:

rainbowballz:

This should be a wake-up call.

I just watched this over at her Facebook page. Tears. Everywhere. Ellen is a beautiful, amazing woman, and I admire her so much it hurts.

Seriously, you guys. This video isn’t even 2 minutes long. Watch it, and reblog.

<3

I love Ellen, she is one of the most perfect persons to talk about this.

Ellen is such an amazing woman. She’s so beautiful, inside and out. This story is one of the saddest stories I’ve heard. It’s disgusting that someone would do this. Invade someones privacy and spread it on the internet.

As hard as it is, don’t let people bring you down. Stay strong, fight for what you believe in. Don’t let the enemy win. Be above them.

<3

I realize that I just posted this, but the message is important so I’m posting it again.

“Ellen is such an amazing woman. She’s so beautiful, inside and out. This story is one of the saddest stories I’ve heard. It’s disgusting that someone would do this. Invade someones privacy and spread it on the internet.

As hard as it is, don’t let people bring you down. Stay strong, fight for what you believe in. Don’t let the enemy win. Be above them.”

Agreed.

I will reblog this every time it comes across my dash.

“one life lost in this senseless way is tragic, four lives lost is a crisis.”

My heart is also breaking. No one should be tormented and bullied so much they feel their life is worthless. These boys, and many other LGBTQ kids who have taken their own lives due to teasing, bullying, etc, deserved to live. They deserved to live long, happy, fulfilling lives. And something needs to change so that more lives aren’t lost.

Judith Butler's op-ed in the New York Times (from March 20, 2009)

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:01:23 -0400

Judith Butler's op-ed in the New York Times (from March 20, 2009):

The title is “A ‘Bad Writer’ Bites Back.” I found it to be a great read. Prior to stumbling across it online, I wasn’t aware that Judith Butler had made any commentary about Philosophy and Literature’s “Bad Writing Contest. This op-ed is from years ago, so it might not be of immediate interest to some readers, but she made some important points here, & I found it to be a positive thing that she addressed the common criticisms of her writing. Check it out, if you like.

Source/credit: The New York Times [On the Web], Judith Butler

Renate Solbach interviews Judith Butler (from 2006)

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 23:42:32 -0400

Renate Solbach interviews Judith Butler (from 2006):

The title given to the interview is “Feminism should not resign in the Face of such Instrumentalization.” I found it pretty interesting to read, and would like to suggest that you check it out!

Source/credit: iablis.de, Renate Solbach

Conversation with Judith Butler!

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 02:28:28 -0400

I’ve taken out some parts of my email, so that this post is a bit shorter & easier to read.

Me: Hello, I’m Kathleen-May L. I noticed that one of the professors at my college attended Columbia Law School’s symposium honoring your work in March. He is a philosophy professor here, so I thought that that was interesting, because you are both philosophers. I remember reading an interview you did a while ago, where you said you considered yourself a feminist theorist before you considered yourself a queer theorist, or a gay and lesbian theorist - would you say that you consider yourself those things before you consider yourself a philosopher? Alright, thank you for taking the time to read this email,

Best wishes

Judith Butler: Dear Kathleen-May,

You are very lucky to have him as a teacher! The fact is that I
was a feminist theorist before something called queer theory came along,
so it is a chronological truth. But what I “am” has never been easy for
me to say. I am all these things at once, and none of them explains
exactly who I am.

my very best,
Judith

___

Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool too!

Hi

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 02:22:00 -0400

Hi everyone,

My apologies for the infrequent updating lately. School has been taking up a lot of my time lately, although it’s been going well & so far I think I’m doing pretty nicely in my classes. (Although I have to drop my Wednesday class for time-related reasons.)

Oh, and you will never believe what happened a few days ago! I emailed Judith Butler, and she replied to me! I’m gonna make a separate post about it, and put it in an “interview” type format.

- Kathleen

Someone on Etsy is selling really cool shirts that have a...

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 19:49:00 -0400

Someone on Etsy is selling really cool shirts that have a picture of Judith Butler on them that say “This is what a philosopher looks like.” Click the picture to get to the Etsy shop, if you want to buy it. Enjoy!

Source/credit: Etsy.com, user- KMStitchery

Judith Butler's blog post about Caster Semenya (from November 2009)

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 22:25:00 -0400

Judith Butler's blog post about Caster Semenya (from November 2009):

I was very excited when I found this blog post by Butler (entitled “Wise Distinctions”), because I was not aware before that she had made any commentary whatsoever about Caster Semenya’s situation [in regards to how shitty she was being treated, etc]. She makes some great points here. Check it out, if you like.

Source/credit: London Review of Books Blog, Judith Butler

"When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They taught us to pray..."

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 21:39:47 -0400

“When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, we had the Bible in our hand, and they had the land.”

- – *Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya* (via annabucci)

"Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing..."

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 21:28:45 -0400

““Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to, or does, but it may also be that despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel. And so when we speak about my sexuality or my gender, as we do (and as we must), we mean something complicated by it. Neither of these is precisely a possession, but both are to be understood as modes of being dispossessed, ways of being for another, or, indeed, by virtue of another.”
— Judith Butler (Undoing Gender)”

Big Queer Blog's post critiquing Judith Butler

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 04:03:00 -0400

Big Queer Blog's post critiquing Judith Butler:

So I was not actually aware of this until just now, but apparently Pauline Park has also written another critique regarding Judith Butler, one from prior to Butler’s rejection of the Civil Courage pride in Berlin. This one in particular covers varying topics, including privilege, Butler’s writing style, and a few more things. In regards to the critique of Butler’s writing style, Pauline Park focuses particularly on Gender Trouble.

I understand and agree with a great deal of what Ms. Park states in her post, but I am also curious about my Tumblr followers thoughts on this. Feel free to reblog this post and add anything you’d like, or things that you think are relevant.

*Also, I’d like to note that this article was written in 2006, so while Ms. Park reiterates some of the criticisms here in her other post criticizing Butler (in regards to the Berlin Pride award), I’m not sure of she still holds all those same views now. In regards to possible questions about informed criticism, it is not entirely clear from reading her post whether or not Park has read Gender Trouble in its entirety. (However, I do feel that if she had started to read it but stopped mid-book do to certain issues with Butler’s writing style, I would understand that as well.)

Source/credit - Big Queer Blog and Pauline Park, writer

Edit/update as of January 7, 2011-

Ms. Park emailed me about 3 days ago clearing some things up. She said “I just came across your website & the links to my 2 blog posts about Judith Butler & noticed the question you raised about whether I’d read “Gender Trouble” in its entirety; to answer your question, the answer is yes…//I’ve also read “Bodies That Matter” in its entirety, along with a few of her essays & the speech that she gave in Berlin.”

If you’d like to read some works by Ms. Park, here are some links:

http://www.paulinepark.com/
http://www.facebook.com/paulineparknewyork
http://twitter.com/paulinepark

& an interview from thegully.com- http://www.thegully.com/essays/gaymundo/020702_transgender_p_park.html

"Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings."

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 21:27:05 -0400

“Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.”

- Heinrich Heine (via abookblog)

AVIVA-Berlin's interview with Judith Butler (September 7, 2010)

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:57:52 -0400

AVIVA-Berlin's interview with Judith Butler (September 7, 2010):

I was very excited when I stumbled across this interview. In it, Butler talks in detail about a few different topics, including her refusal of the Civil Courage Prize in Berlin. I thought this was great, because most of the coverage I have read about this was other people’s opinions and statements about her refusal of the prize, & I previously hadn’t been able to come across a statement that she had made herself. I had no idea that initially, when she arrived, she had intended to accept the prize. In my opinion, it’s pretty fucking great that that had happened organically & this pretty much squashes the rumors of Butler’s refusal of the prize as a “publicity stunt”.

Also, I really appreciated here how Butler talks about the intersectionality of oppression. Overall, I must say that she is truly a badass and you should read this interview. For serious.

Source/credit: AVIVA-Berlin website, Undine Zimmer, Marie Heidingsfelder, and Sharon Adler

Judith Butler's Commencement Address at Grinnell College (2008)

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 21:36:27 -0400

Judith Butler's Commencement Address at Grinnell College (2008):

Source/credit: grinnell.edu archives