December 8, 2011
by Sara Alcid
Comments Off on Judith Butler: A Superstar at Bryn Mawr
A flurry of extended excitement could be detected at Bryn Mawr from the moment Judith Butler’s Mary Flexner Lectureship was announced until many students had their parting words with the scholar at the book signing on November 21st. … Continue reading
December 1, 2011
by Sara Alcid
Comments Off on The Stylization of Solicitational Imagery
In Judith Butler’s third and final lecture, she spoke about images as ethical solicitations—ones that ask us to overcome our locality and “negotiate proximal quandaries.” We are all familiar with the images of starving children that flash across our television … Continue reading
November 17, 2011
by Sara Alcid
Comments Off on Media, Technology, and Street Activism
I was pleasantly surprised to see the end of Judith Butler’s second lecture, “Bodies in Alliance & the Politics of the Street” take a turn toward an exploration of the role that modern technologies play in the politics of the … Continue reading
November 10, 2011
by Sara Alcid
1 Comment
Judith Butler’s earlier work is often criticized for being too far removed from lived realities and not grounded in any sort of social activism. From the first glimpse I had of Butler’s Bodies in Alliance lecture series this Monday, I … Continue reading
October 27, 2011
by Sara Alcid
Comments Off on Rachel Maddow and Judith Butler’s Critique of “the Shiny New Gay Citizen”
Earlier this month, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow expressed skepticism regarding the value of the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the institution of marriage. “I feel that gay people not being able to … Continue reading
October 13, 2011
by Sara Alcid
Comments Off on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and Masculinity as Repudiated Homosexuality
Many approaches to Gender and Sexuality Studies encourage us to divorce gender from sexuality, so while reading “Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification,” it felt somewhat “illegal” to be examining them in a way that considered them to be co-defining. Of course, throughout … Continue reading
September 30, 2011
by Sara Alcid
Comments Off on The Imperatives of Pornography: Realizable Fourteen Years Later?
Having previously read MacKinnon’s work on pornography in relation to how liberalism undermines women’s rights, I was pleased to see Butler address MacKinnon’s theories in “Burning Acts, Injurious Speech.” As far as we know, in 1997, Butler disagreed with MacKinnon’s … Continue reading
September 16, 2011
by Sara Alcid
Comments Off on The “Founding” of America and the Field of the Visible
Seeing is not just one of our senses or a biological function—it is a means of knowing the world that is shaped by our history and socialization. Butler explains how among the ever-present fear of the black male body, the … Continue reading
September 2, 2011
by Sara Alcid
1 Comment
Just yesterday, I was discussing the value and danger in identity categories in one of the Bryn Mawr courses being offered in connection with Judith Butler’s Flexner Lectureship, “Queens, Nuns, and Other Deviants in the Early Modern Iberian World.” Some … Continue reading
August 19, 2011
by Sara Alcid
Comments Off on Butler and The Prettiest Boy
Earlier this week, I received New York Magazine in the mail and was surprised to see what I perceived at first glance to be a bare-chested woman on the cover. It turns out that the model on the cover is … Continue reading