Stage Left: A Review of Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left

Reviews the three way conversation among Ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Zizek, and Judith Butler on leftist political theories of hegemony and universality and social change. My essay introduces the concept of a "Negative Universal" for there first time

La condición vulnerable (Una lectura de Emmanuel Levinas, Judith Butler y Adriana Cavarero)

El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar la fecunda recepción que la ética de Emmanuel Levinas tiene en dos filósofas contemporáneas: Judith Butler y Adriana Cavarero. En la primera parte se expone la filosofía de Levinas atendiendo tanto a su crítica de la noción de «intencionalidad» de Husserl como a la importancia que tiene para él la obra de Rosenzweig. En la segunda se muestra la influencia de la noción de «rostro» de Levinas en la crítica que Judith Butler realiza de los marcos morales. Finalmente, en la tercera parte se presenta la noción de «inclinación» de Adriana Cavarero y se pone de manifiesto la herencia que también aquí recibe de Levinas. PALABRAS CLAVE: intencionalidad, ética, moral, vulnerabilidad, compasión, rostro, inclinación. The Vulnerable Condition (a Reading of Emmanuel Levinas, Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero) ABSTRACT: The aim of this article is to show the fertile reception that Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics have on two contemporary philosophers: Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero. The first part present Levinas’s philosophy paying attention both to his criticism of Husserl’s notion of “intentionality” and the significance that he gives to Rosenzweig’s work. The second part shows the influence of Levinas’s notion of “face” on Judith Butler’s criticism of moral frameworks. Finally, the third part presents Adriana Cavarero’s notion of “inclination” and shows the inheritance from Levinas in this aspect. KEYWORDS: Purpose, ethics, morals, vulnerability, sympathy, face, inclination

Martin Paul Eve on talking disability activism with Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Judith Butler

I have spent much of this week thinking about disability activism. I was spurred to this by Naomi Lawson Jacobs who was excluded this week from attending a lecture by Judith Butler at UCL because she uses a mobility scooter. At late notice, the talk was moved to a larger lecture theatre so that more people could attend. However, the new venue was not accessible. I signed Jacobs’ open letter and suggested that she write to Judith Butler. Between us, we agreed that I would write and copy Naomi Jacobs in. To my great surprise, Butler replied almost immediately saying she was appalled and that she was trying to get the venue changed. When this proved impossible at the last minute, Butler instead made a statement at the start of her talk noting that she felt that this was probably illegal under the Equalities Act 2010 and offered to meet with those affected. And so, on Friday afternoon, a small group of us met with Judith at Birkbeck, in the School of Arts, to talk about disability activism, ongoing discrimination in universities, and what can be done

Film Review: Judith Butler: Philosophical Encounters of the Third Kind

Review of Judith Butler: Philosophical Encounters of the Third Kind by Paule Zadjermann (filmmaker

Ressenyes

Index de les obres ressenyades: Judith BUTLER, Desfer el gènere (Undoing Gender). Nova York i Londres: Rouledge, 2004

Social Work, Power and Performativity

In recent years, there have been a number of epistemological developments in social work. Further, there have been a number of theoretical approaches that have attempted to ground the concept of ‘power’ to understand organizational practice such as Marxist thought. At the same time, the insights of French social theorist Michel Foucault have been captivating to the disciplinary development of social work in illuminating power relations and subject positioning between helping professions and clients. To move beyond this, and in order to theoretically interrogate the relationship between social theory and professional power, this article draws from the neo Foucauldian-Feminist philosopher Judith Butler – especially regarding Butler's (1990, 1993 and 1998) powerful work on ‘performativity’. This article attempts to generate new theoretical insights to understanding contemporary social work through the conceptual tools of Butler

The onus of thought in the War on Terror

A commentary on “Explanation and Exoneration, or What We Can Hear” by Judith Butler, Theory & Event, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2001

Judith Butler and construction of subject in performative terms

Judith Butler es una de las autoras contemporáneas que más exhaustivamente se ha ocupado de la problematización del sujeto desde una perspectiva feminista-queer y antiesencialista, desvelando que el sujeto no es una categoría cerrada y establecida por completo sino un proceso de construcción continuo y abierto a constantes rearticulaciones. Cabe preguntarse, por ello, cómo explica J. Butler este proceso de construcción del sujeto y la identidad desde una perspectiva antiesencialista y, de manera más específica, ¿a qué se refiere al señalar que el sujeto es construido? ¿Qué significa entender el sujeto como construcción?Judith Butler is one of the more extensively contemporary authors who has addressed the problematization of the subject from a feminist-queer and antiessentialist perspective, showing that the subject is not a closed and fully established category but a process of continuous construction and open to rearticulations constant. We may wonder, therefore, how J. Butler explains this process of construction of the subject and identity from an antiessentialist perspective and, more specifically, what she refers by stating that the subject is constructed? What means understanding the subject as construction