Abject Judy

Jim heartfield jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk
Tue Dec 8 13:42:36 PST 1998


In message <000b01be22b5$3c8ab1e0$02f246d1 at epi59.EPI>, Max Sawicky <sawicky at epinet.org> writes
>> Anyhoo, so who's up for a reading of Butler? It's gotta be _The Psychic
>> Life of Power_ . . .

OK, so riddle me this:

In 'Gender Imitation and subobordination' (reproduced in C Lemert's Collection Social Theory, 1991) Judith Butler critiques the positions of objectification (bad, obviously) subjectivity (bad she says because it implies objectification of others, of which I am not convinced) and then raises a third way, which avoids both of these traps...

...the 'abject'.

When I come to look this up, my thesaurus gives the synonyms cowering, obeisant, subservient and obsequious.

Is this the programme - cowering, obeisant, subservient and obsequious? -- Jim heartfield



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