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 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 16, 2011
by Vanessa Christman
1 Comment
This week, I have been in several conversations dealing with visual images, perception and race. The conversations have been respectful and filled with the desire to learn and to do the right thing. Unlike the interactions between the defense attorneys … Continue reading
September 16, 2011
by Mary Zaborskis
Comments Off on Now You See It, Now You Don’t
In Judith Butler’s “Endangered/Endangering: Schematic Racism and White Paranoia,” she unpacks another illusion for us: the difference between “seeing” and “reading.” We often think we’re doing the former, which suggests a neutral way of viewing an object, but more often … Continue reading
September 16, 2011
by Steph Herold
Comments Off on Theory and Violence
I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. – Tupac on the LA riots after the Rodney King trial. Nothing that has happened to Rodney King is new. America has always been about this. – … 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
September 2, 2011
by Vanessa Christman
Comments Off on Reflections on my “Insubordinate” Youth
I am thinking about becoming a princess. It’s going to be harder than you might think. Raised Pennsylvania Dutch and Lutheran in the shadow of the women’s movement, I have always been self-reliant above all else. Since childhood, I scoffed … 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
September 2, 2011
by Mary Zaborskis
Comments Off on Can We Have Gendered Means Without Gendered Ends?
In Jose Esteban Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, he describes political philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s theory of gesture—that is, action and that which constitutes performance—as “means without ends” (91). In other words, gesture is something that … Continue reading
September 2, 2011
by Steph Herold
Comments Off on Is “coming out” a useful frame to reduce abortion stigma?
Almost a year ago, I launched a campaign on twitter called #ihadanabortion. I asked women who were comfortable doing so to “come out” about their abortion experience using the hashtag to aggregate all the responses. I hoped that this would … Continue reading