Resistencias - repensar la vulnerabilidad y repetición

by Judith Butler

Pensar en una vulnerabilidad que no se oponga al ejercicio de la agencia, pensar en la vulnerabilidad como movilizadora de la resistencia es la única forma de resistir. Sabernos vulnerables como las posibles siguientes víctimas, pero aun así sabernos capaces de ejercer agencia es ya una forma de resistir. Quizá la única que nos queda. ¿Acaso repensar la vulnerabilidad y la repetición son actos de resistencia? Este libro reúne dos intervenciones de Judith Butler, una de las filósofas estadounidenses más destacadas de las últimas décadas, en torno a la filosofía política y el psicoanálisis. Lectura imprescindible para aquellos interesados en repensar las categorías filosóficas y los planteamientos que se hacen al psicoanálisis en un mundo contemporáneo que busca un cambio verdadero.

Genres: Feminism, Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Social Justice, Cultural, Queer

94 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2018

About the author

Judith Butler is an American philosopher, feminist, and queer theorist whose work has profoundly shaped gender studies, political philosophy, ethics, psychoanalysis, and literary theory. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a Hungarian-Jewish and Russian-Jewish family, Butler was raised in a Jewish cultural and ethical environment that fostered an early engagement with philosophy, ethics, and questions of identity, attending Hebrew school and specialized ethics classes as a teenager. They studied philosophy at Bennington College before transferring to Yale University, where they earned a BA in 1978 and a PhD in 1984, focusing on German idealism, phenomenology, and French theory, including Hegel, Sartre, and Kojève. Butler taught at Wesleyan University, George Washington University, and Johns Hopkins University before joining the University of California, Berkeley in 1993, where they co-founded the Program in Critical Theory, served as Maxine Elliot Professor, directed the International Consortium of Critical Theory, and also hold the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School. Butler is best known for Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter, works in which they introduced the theory of gender performativity, arguing that gender is constituted through repeated social acts rather than a fixed identity, a concept that became foundational in feminist and queer theory. They have also published Excitable Speech, examining hate speech and censorship, Precarious Life, analyzing vulnerability and political violence, Undoing Gender, on the social construction of sexual norms, Giving an Account of Oneself, exploring ethical responsibility and the limits of self-knowledge, and Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, addressing public protest and collective action, while their 2020 book, The Force of Nonviolence, emphasizes ethical engagement in social and political struggles. Butler has engaged in global activism, supporting LGBTQIA rights, opposing anti-gender ideology, advocating for Palestinian rights, critiquing aspects of contemporary Israeli policy, and participating in movements such as Occupy Wall Street, while navigating controversies including critiques of their comments on Hamas and Hezbollah, debates over TERF ideology, and disputes over the Adorno Prize, illustrating the intersections of their scholarship and public interventions. Their work extends into ethical theory, exploring vulnerability, interdependence, mourning, and the recognition of marginalized lives, as well as the performative dimensions of identity and the social construction of sex and gender. They have influenced contemporary feminist, queer, and critical theory, cultural studies, and continental philosophy, shaping debates on gender, sexuality, power, and social justice, while also participating in public discourse and advocacy around education, political violence, and anti-discrimination. Butler is legally non-binary in California, uses they/them pronouns, identifies as a lesbian, and lives in Berkeley with their partner Wendy Brown and their son.

Reviews

[Javier Ormeno · Rating 4 out of 5]

The body is the space where we inhabit. It is the space where we become vulnerable to violence, abduction, imposition of norms and pain. Paradoxically, it is this space of vulnerability the same space where resistance can happen. A present body is the sign of resistance. The book goes through examples of how embodiment can be shown through fine and performative arts; it elaborates on how experience of vulnerability in some sense equalises differences among oppressed groups; and most notably analyses the embodied resistance during Gezi park protest.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers some profound moments and strategies to commence radical retheorizations of both vulnerability and resistance, and vulnerability in resistance.

The challenge is that it is a book composed of chapters by different authors. While these case studies and insights are important, the capacity of these divergent chapters to align into an argument is a challenge.

As always, Butler's chapter is magnificent. But I perticularly want to log Leticia Sabsay's "Permeable bodies: vulnerability, affective powers, hegemony." This is the last chapter in the book. It is the strongest and most provocative, exploring the political capacity of "shared vulnerability." In many ways, the project of the title begins with this last chapter. There is outstanding research to develop from the foundations created in this book.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for a research paper and honestly anything Butler puts out is worth the read. I liked Sabasy’s chapter the most though

[Virga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gera. Retai pasitaiko, kad beveik visi straipsniai yra su neatsitiktinių reiškinių analizėmis. Ne tik geriau paaiškėja atskiros politinės įtampos, konfliktai ir grupės, kurios jų metu yra pažeidžiamiausios, bet ir šiandieninio feminizmo akcentai. Iš straipsnių rinkinio retai kada tikiesi ko gero, bet va - pasitaiko.

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

A diverse, though cohesive, group of essays that provide some interesting perspectives on vulnerability and its role in oppression and resistance.

"The point is to show that vulnerability is part of resistance, made manifest by new forms of embodied political interventions and modes of alliance that are characterized by interdependency and public action. These hold the promise of developing new modes of collective agency that do not deny vulnerability as a resource and that aspire to equality, freedom, and justice as their political aims."

[Katrinka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really interesting and insightful essays combined with others that are so steeped in academese that they suck all the life out of their subjects.

[val andrés · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brillante qué puedo decir.