Judith Butler
Judith Butler
Judith Butleris an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics and the fields of feminist, queer and literary theory. Since 1993, she has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is now Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory. She is also the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth24 February 1956
CityCleveland, OH
CountryUnited States of America
expression identity gender
There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender... identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results.
sex character expression
Gender is not something that one is, it is something one does, an act... a "doing" rather than a "being". There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results. If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called 'sex' is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.
arrive covered elsewhere given national needs order perspective
Events that get covered in the U.S. one way are not very important elsewhere or are given a completely different slant, and one needs to have a kind of comparative way of thinking in order to arrive at a judgment that is not completely provincial, that doesn't end up ratifying one's own national perspective and hence, one's own national agendas.
both certain critical dimensions extremely global movements social stop understanding
Understanding Hamas/Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important. That does not stop us from being critical of certain dimensions of both movements.
adopting ironic tactic
What is ironic is that equating Zionism with Jewishness, is adopting the very tactic favoured by anti-semites.
boycott calling directed exclusive israel jewish legitimate people sanctions state understood
Only if we accept the proposition that the state of Israel is the exclusive and legitimate representative of the Jewish people would a movement calling for divestment, sanctions and boycott against that state be understood as directed against the Jewish people as a whole.
effeminate man might reads
A man who reads effeminate may well be consistently heterosexual, and another one might be gay. We can't read sexuality off of gender.
academic curriculum designed freedom government including intervene outside powers principle sure
The principle of academic freedom is designed to make sure that powers outside the university, including government and corporations, are not able to control the curriculum or intervene in extra-mural speech.
context life lost personal relation taken terrible understand war
I don't think we have to have a personal relation to a life lost to understand that something terrible has taken place, especially in the context of war.
jewish large presume
Honestly, what can really be said about 'the Jewish people' as a whole? Is it not a lamentable stereotype to make large generalizations about all Jews, and to presume they all share the same political commitments?
against arbitrary concentration ethically imperative learned second state taught war
As a Jew, I was taught that it was ethically imperative to speak up and to speak out against arbitrary state violence. That was part of what I learned when I learned about the Second World War and the concentration camps.
cameras cannot collateral determined help means minimize missile wage war ways whether work
Cameras help to minimize collateral damage, and very often, without a camera a missile cannot fire. Certainly, without a camera a drone can't function, which means that the very ways in which we wage war are determined in part by how cameras work and whether they work at all.
cover jews trying
When one set of Jews labels another set of Jews 'anti-Semitic,' they are trying to monopolize the right to speak in the name of the Jews. So the allegation of anti-Semitism is actually a cover for an intra-Jewish quarrel.
existence including israel oz poet professor
Identifying Israel with Jewry obscures the existence of the small but important post-Zionist movement in Israel, including the philosophers Adi Ophir and Anat Biletzki, the sociologist Uri Ram, the professor of theatre Avraham Oz and the poet Yitzhak Laor.