Las trayectorias del concepto de vida en el pensamiento de Judith Butler

In this paper we propose to look into different meanings of livability and life in Judith butler’s thought. Although crucial for her early work (she points to it in her 1999 Introduction to Gender Trouble), the concept of livability as such emerges more often and in a more pronounced manner in her later books (from Undoing Gender and Precarious life to Towards a Performative Theory of Assembly). Our main question is: what is the thread that runs through different concepts of life in butler’s work? What are the links between abject, unlivable, precarious, ungrievable, jettisoned and dispossessed life? this raises further questions: the question of gradation of livability (which life matters and ‘how much’, and how to think this quantifiability of something so unquantifiable); and the question of universality (all lives matter). these questions obviously need to take into account the terms under which a life is qualified and counted as livable. such conditions encompass the norms that organize the possibility of recognition and the orders of recognizability and differential allocation of humanness. they encompass the ways in which we are constituted politically, but also in which this ‘we’ is social and bodily. the question of livable life is thus very much entangled with the issue of (individual) agency, but also with what we as agents require “in order to maintain and reproduce the conditions of (our) own livability” (Undoing Gender 2004: 39).En este ensayo, nos proponemos explorar los diferentes significados de los conceptos de vivibilidad y vida en el pensamiento de Judith butler. si bien es crucial para su obra temprana —butler se refiere por primera vez a este concepto en su introducción del libro, El género en disputa de 1999—, el concepto en sí emerge con más claridad y elaboración en su obra tardía (Deshacer el género, Vida precaria y Apuntes hacia una teoría performativa de asamblea). nuestra pregunta principal sería: ¿cuál es el hilo conductor que une las diferentes concepciones de vida en el trabajo de butler? ¿cuáles son los lazos entre la vida abyecta, invivible, precaria, indolora, desechada y desposeída? De estas dos preguntas surgen otras más: como la cuestión de gradación de vivibilidad — qué vida importa, y “cuánto,” y cómo pensar este tipo de cuantificación de algo no-cuantificable—; y la cuestión de la universalidad (todas las vidas importan). estas preguntas, obviamente, tienen que contar con evidencias bajo las cuales la vida es cualificada, calificada y contada como vivible. estas condiciones abarcan las normas que organizan las posibilidades de reconocimiento y los órdenes de reconocimiento tanto como la distribución diferencial de la humanidad. Y además engloban las maneras en las que estamos constituidos políticamente, pero también, las maneras en las que el “nosotros” se define como social y corporal. La cuestión de la vida vivible está, por ende, enmarañada con la problemática de la contraposición entre la voluntad individual y la idea del “nosotros”, que, como seres, necesitamos —en palabras de la propia butler— “para mantener y reproducir las condiciones de (nuestra) propia vivibilidad” (Deshacer el género 2004: 39)

Corruption and Sex

Taking into account the difference between the ancient and modern (even postmodern) understandings of corruption, I am curious to explore why the bond linking corruption and sex seems so obvious. I have no intention of investigating both phenomena in the context of any moral category. What then did Flaubert have on his mind when he wrote that Rodolphe “treated Emma quite sans façon. He made of her something supple and corrupt.” What underpins the irresistible attraction between corruption and sex? Why is it impossible to eradicate corruption and repress sex and perceive them as solely functional strategies of generation and reproduction? This short outline follows certain philosophical remarks of Luce Irigaray and her thematization of the sexual difference in the demarcation of generation and corruption

...Beyond folie à deux...

In this text I attempt to recognize and identify two conditions that make engagement possible. One certainly refers to the word, while the other is inscribed onto the body - every or any body - and it regards affect. I illustrate the first condition by a brief reading of a poem by Samuel Beckett, whose English translation the author dedicated to his friend and long-term collaborator, Joseph Chaikin. The second condition I place into Spinoza’s, that is, Deleuze’s understanding of affect

Ruralnost i rod: Dostupnost i prepoznavanje programa socijalne zaštite

Kako živeti bolje u Srbiji? U kojoj meri pojedinci, a onda i određene grupe stanovništva koje ne žive u urbanim sredinama, ekonomski zavisni ili finansijski deprivirani, slabijeg ili lošeg zdravlja, sa lakšim ili težim oblikom invaliditeta, pritom i neupućeni u dobar deo administrativnih i institucionalnih finesa socijalne zaštite, marginalizovane ili u sistemu potpuno nevidljive žene i devojčice, zaista mogu ostvariti zakonom im garantovana prava socijalne zaštite? Na koji način i u kojoj meri se mogu informisati o svojim pravima i obavezama? Kako mogu naučiti da ih koriste i čiju pomoć mogu očekivati, a čiju čak i zahtevati? Od koga mogu očekivati ne samo ekonomske, administrativne ili tehničke savete, već i afektivnu podršku? Kako mogu postati i ostati punopravni aktivni građani/ke Republike Srbije (dakle, upoznati sa svojim pravima socijalne i zdravstvene zaštite i svesni kako ih mogu sticati, jednako kao i sa obavezama koje su dužni ispunjavati)

Ruralnost i rod: Dostupnost i prepoznavanje programa socijalne zaštite

Kako živeti bolje u Srbiji? U kojoj meri pojedinci, a onda i određene grupe stanovništva koje ne žive u urbanim sredinama, ekonomski zavisni ili finansijski deprivirani, slabijeg ili lošeg zdravlja, sa lakšim ili težim oblikom invaliditeta, pritom i neupućeni u dobar deo administrativnih i institucionalnih finesa socijalne zaštite, marginalizovane ili u sistemu potpuno nevidljive žene i devojčice, zaista mogu ostvariti zakonom im garantovana prava socijalne zaštite? Na koji način i u kojoj meri se mogu informisati o svojim pravima i obavezama? Kako mogu naučiti da ih koriste i čiju pomoć mogu očekivati, a čiju čak i zahtevati? Od koga mogu očekivati ne samo ekonomske, administrativne ili tehničke savete, već i afektivnu podršku? Kako mogu postati i ostati punopravni aktivni građani/ke Republike Srbije (dakle, upoznati sa svojim pravima socijalne i zdravstvene zaštite i svesni kako ih mogu sticati, jednako kao i sa obavezama koje su dužni ispunjavati)

Serbia at the Crossroads. Gender Inclusiveness in Higher Education: Real or just Wishful Thinking?

The present paper examines and analyzes the level of gender content inclusiveness in faculty curricula, in Serbia. The analysis is focused on the introduction of gender curricula at the Universities of Belgrade, Niš, and Novi Sad and data gathered from interviews with academics from the investigated departments, and also supplied by experts in the field of education, working in governmental institutions. The case study covers the Departments of Humanities and Social Sciences of mentioned Universities. Findings indicate that the process of gender content inclusion in Serbia faces numerous difficulties and obstacles, often generating disapproval within the academic community itself. Nonetheless, owing to the individual efforts and enthusiasm of those academics involved in women’s studies and in gender studies, university curricula in certain fields of studies such as Legal, Educational and Social Sciences are slowly, but steadily, undergoing revision while adapting their content to them, and the current of gender inclusiveness is on the rise