December 8, 2011
by Elly Truitt
Comments Off on Fin
The past five months have been some of the most exciting I’ve had on Bryn Mawr’s campus. Judith Butler’s visit—the lectures, faculty seminars, classroom visits, screenings, receptions, lunches, and dinners—injected a sense of extraordinary anticipation and vibrancy into the campus … Continue reading
December 1, 2011
by Elly Truitt
Comments Off on Towards a Cohabitation of Ethics
Butler’s third and final lecture, “Towards an Ethics of Cohabitation,” was the final piece in her troika on visibility, personhood, and democratic participation. Taking the notion of queer alliances—those alliances of groups or individuals with divergent or different attitudes and … Continue reading
November 18, 2011
by Elly Truitt
1 Comment
Butler’s second Flexner lecture, Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street, discussed the power of alliances, especially “queer alliances” to disrupt and challenge the chokehold of neo-liberal policies and politics. When people come together in public spaces in … Continue reading
November 10, 2011
by Elly Truitt
Comments Off on Being Human
Judith Butler’s inaugural lecture, “Gender Politics and the Right to Appear,” was a scorcher, covering the limitations of later capitalism, the politics of precarity, and the fundamental basis of democracy: the right to appear in public. At the heart of … Continue reading
October 27, 2011
by Elly Truitt
2 Comments
Over the past decade, since Judith Butler’s essay, “Competing Universalities,” civil rights for those who identify as gay and lesbian have expanded dramatically. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been repealed, allowing tens of thousands of gay servicemen and servicewomen to … Continue reading
October 13, 2011
by Elly Truitt
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In “Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification” Butler presents a “stark and hyperbolic construction of the relation between gender and sexuality” (p. 248) that turns on the necessity of the repression of same-sex desire in order to inhabit an unstable gender of “masculine” … Continue reading
September 30, 2011
by Elly Truitt
1 Comment
I have read “Burning Acts, Injurious Speech,” several times now, and I remain somewhat confused by the argument. Not unconvinced, but uncertain of how all the parts fit together. All speech is “excitable,” meaning that it is, at some level, … Continue reading
September 16, 2011
by Elly Truitt
Comments Off on White Paranoia, 2011 Edition
It’s difficult to read Butler’s essay on the video of Rodney King’s brutal beating and the subsequent trial of the LAPD officers who beat him without thinking of the corrosive rhetoric surrounding President Obama. Butler’s eloquent explanation of the ways … Continue reading
September 2, 2011
by Elly Truitt
Comments Off on Performance Theory
“Imitation and Gender Insubordination” is superb. I want to turn this into a pamphlet and hand it out to people who are skeptical of the utility of critical theory and philosophy in daily life. By “coming out” (a phrase that … Continue reading
August 19, 2011
by Elly Truitt
Comments Off on The Performance of Gender in a Medieval Context
Butler’s theory of the active performance of gender elicits questions related to my own research and teaching. I teach a course on medieval medicine and disease, and it seems that my students are perennially fascinated by the nuances of gender … Continue reading