I am pleased to inaugurate the Flexner Book Club Blog by welcoming you to the 2011 Judith Butler edition of the blog.

Earlier this year, Associate Provost Beth Shepard-Rabadam and I were talking about Judith Butler’s visit to Bryn Mawr College and her lectures in the fall. We knew that her presence on campus as the Mary Flexner Lecturer would be a great opportunity for those who would be able to attend the lectures in Goodhart Hall or enroll in one of the classes that were designed around her work.

But Beth and I thought it would be really great if we could expand the engagement with Judith Butler and her work beyond the borders of the campus. So we started envisioning an online, virtual “book club” that could function as both a primer to Butler’s scholarly work and a site for open discussion around her ideas. We wanted to have a few voices on the blog that could get the conversation started, so we recruited a faculty member, two students, a staff member, and an alumna to serve as regular bloggers. (Please see the bios page for a complete list.) Together we chose a text, and created a reading schedule and comment guidelines, in the hopes that anyone who was interested could read along with our regular bloggers and engage in thoughtful discussions in the comments sections of posts.

When Beth and I proposed this online book club idea to the individuals who would become our core bloggers, and were greeted with unqualified enthusiasm and eagerness, we knew that we were onto something. And as much as I look forward to reading on the schedule, and reading what our bloggers have to say about the essays, I am just as excited to see how the conversations and discussions in the comments sections develop and evolve.

We’ll be reading essays from the Judith Butler Reader, and a round of posts devoted to each essay by the core bloggers will appear every other Friday. The first round of posts about the first essay will be published on Friday, July 22. Comments will remain open throughout the fall semester, so you can join the conversation at any time. More information about the text, schedule, comments, bloggers, and the lectures, can be accessed using the links at the top of every page.

Welcome to the 2011 Judith Butler Edition of the Flexner Book Club Blog! Hope to see you in the comments!