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On Seeing Judith Butler Speaking
May. 29th, 2012 10:35 am(Judith Butler Lecture, Vogue Theatre, Vancouver, May 24th)
Let's see. Full house, or nearly. Mostly academics by the slightly dampened feel of them, but they were pleased to see her to near (but not quite) fanboy levels.
As always with Butler, there's that dramatic contrast between her academic voice and her less formal conversational voice.
The lecture itself was structurally what you might expect -- begin at the beginning and then explain why you can't begin at the beginning and then go back and back and back like Tristram Shandy until you end up explaining why you can never begin at all.
I begin to be certain that Gertrude Stein is a deliberate formal influence. It would make sense given Butler's attunement to the variations in language.
There was, I believe, an element of wry self-parody in all of this, since it was concentrated at the beginning of the lecture, the traditional location for formal deferrals and elaborate caveats. All this, for Butler, is of course heavily ethically freighted.
All that being said, it was a tremendous lecture.
I think of Butler as having changed her focus over time, but it's more accurate to say her ideas have accrued.
Her jumping-off place was the occupy movement. She questioned the meaning of public assembly, of being "in the streets" and the different valences that might have -- left-wing revolt, right-wing protest, military occupation.
She spoke a great deal of vulnerability, the assignment of the status of vulnerable/invulnerable -- these were ideas that I found familiar, but appropriate: the attempt to evade death by assigning bodily vulnerability to someone else.
She used a lot of this contemporary language about "bodies gathering" "bodies being put in places" -- and I saw the use of it -- getting away from *ideas* in conflict, from humans as materializations of ideology -- though I find it unsettling. It's still not quite a satisfying way, for me, to speak about embodied beings and their actions.
She spoke passionately and lucidly about non-violent protest as active rather than passive resistance.
And she spoke about livability, which is a term I've always found both powerful and opaque. I think I got a better idea of what she means by it -- in fact, in this case it was largely about compromise, even a kind of "go easy on yourself" exhortation to activists who are trying to live up to an abstract ideal. I found that surprisingly gentle. Find the most ethical behaviours you can actually live.
The question period was fascinating. The questioners (mostly young) wanted to debate highly abstract theoretical points (one gent cited "our friend Hegel") or else to find weaknesses in her ideology (was she censorious about right-wing protest?) -- yet Butler constantly turned her answers back to the immediate subject, reversing, if you like, the work of her talk. It almost seemed like a trick.
And the person she was in the question period, as always, was someone I liked and respected. I mean -- she's funny. She self-identified as "an old lefty." She took her glasses off for particularly difficult questions.
There was one great moment when, speaking deprecatingly of herself, she said "We are what we are," and I burst out laughing and repeated this to my companion, as maybe the funniest thing Judith Butler could possibly have said. I think he was slightly nonplussed.
The most striking and heartening moment for me was when, in response to a young man's assertion that the occupy movement had "failed" (veiled suggestion that only violent protest would suffice to overthrow tyrranies, etc.) -- Butler said, forcefully, "This movement is just beginning."
I thought: Judith Butler! You *believe* in something! You're an idealist! You're a dreamer! You old lefty.
*Cheers to the person I originally sent this to for suggesting I post this.
Let's see. Full house, or nearly. Mostly academics by the slightly dampened feel of them, but they were pleased to see her to near (but not quite) fanboy levels.
As always with Butler, there's that dramatic contrast between her academic voice and her less formal conversational voice.
The lecture itself was structurally what you might expect -- begin at the beginning and then explain why you can't begin at the beginning and then go back and back and back like Tristram Shandy until you end up explaining why you can never begin at all.
I begin to be certain that Gertrude Stein is a deliberate formal influence. It would make sense given Butler's attunement to the variations in language.
There was, I believe, an element of wry self-parody in all of this, since it was concentrated at the beginning of the lecture, the traditional location for formal deferrals and elaborate caveats. All this, for Butler, is of course heavily ethically freighted.
All that being said, it was a tremendous lecture.
I think of Butler as having changed her focus over time, but it's more accurate to say her ideas have accrued.
Her jumping-off place was the occupy movement. She questioned the meaning of public assembly, of being "in the streets" and the different valences that might have -- left-wing revolt, right-wing protest, military occupation.
She spoke a great deal of vulnerability, the assignment of the status of vulnerable/invulnerable -- these were ideas that I found familiar, but appropriate: the attempt to evade death by assigning bodily vulnerability to someone else.
She used a lot of this contemporary language about "bodies gathering" "bodies being put in places" -- and I saw the use of it -- getting away from *ideas* in conflict, from humans as materializations of ideology -- though I find it unsettling. It's still not quite a satisfying way, for me, to speak about embodied beings and their actions.
She spoke passionately and lucidly about non-violent protest as active rather than passive resistance.
And she spoke about livability, which is a term I've always found both powerful and opaque. I think I got a better idea of what she means by it -- in fact, in this case it was largely about compromise, even a kind of "go easy on yourself" exhortation to activists who are trying to live up to an abstract ideal. I found that surprisingly gentle. Find the most ethical behaviours you can actually live.
The question period was fascinating. The questioners (mostly young) wanted to debate highly abstract theoretical points (one gent cited "our friend Hegel") or else to find weaknesses in her ideology (was she censorious about right-wing protest?) -- yet Butler constantly turned her answers back to the immediate subject, reversing, if you like, the work of her talk. It almost seemed like a trick.
And the person she was in the question period, as always, was someone I liked and respected. I mean -- she's funny. She self-identified as "an old lefty." She took her glasses off for particularly difficult questions.
There was one great moment when, speaking deprecatingly of herself, she said "We are what we are," and I burst out laughing and repeated this to my companion, as maybe the funniest thing Judith Butler could possibly have said. I think he was slightly nonplussed.
The most striking and heartening moment for me was when, in response to a young man's assertion that the occupy movement had "failed" (veiled suggestion that only violent protest would suffice to overthrow tyrranies, etc.) -- Butler said, forcefully, "This movement is just beginning."
I thought: Judith Butler! You *believe* in something! You're an idealist! You're a dreamer! You old lefty.
*Cheers to the person I originally sent this to for suggesting I post this.
