[lbo-talk] Butler

wrobert at uci.edu wrobert at uci.edu
Wed Jun 4 14:16:32 PDT 2008



> This is like the fifth post in the last half-hour that's accused me of
> not understanding Butler's text, which I've now read and re-read about
> 12 times. Which brings this to mind:

The problem with this kind of reading practice, is that it pretends that Butler wrote a passage rather than a book. Butler is a fairly conventional continental philosopher in that she tends to put a lot of work into defining her terms. These 'gotcha' quotes invariably tear small sections out of an argument that has taken a number of pages to set up, stripping them of their meaning. I tend to feel that Gender Trouble is the most difficult of her texts, primarily because she is working so much of Lacan's work, which is difficult because Lacan, unlike Butler, doesn't put that kind of diligence into producing his concepts. I would suggest looking at the Wellek lectures or her work in Precarious Lives for a more cohesive text.

I'll also toss in a response to the Nussbaum piece. What I find curious about the kind of response that she produces is that it ignores the empirical fact that Butler's work has been fairly influencial on a lot of activism and that activists have used her ideas to produce other kinds of action. I would suggest looking at the introduction to the new edition of Gender Trouble for more on that. My suspicion is that Nussbaum is really freaked out by the destruction of the liberal humanist subject. Look at Giving an Account of oneself for a discussion of the ethical outside this subject formation. I'll be back to respond tomorrow, but my posts are 'up.' robert wood



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