Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
In the 1980s, this book contends, an uncritical affirmation of anti-essentialism turned this important feminist critique into a disciplinary dogmatism that constrained and homogenized feminist ...
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In the 1980s, this book contends, an uncritical affirmation of anti-essentialism turned this important feminist critique into a disciplinary dogmatism that constrained and homogenized feminist thinking. Feminist work in the academy became forgetful of both women and nature, and began to exchange an engaged politics for the intensity of sublime experience in its postmodern form. This book works between the modern and postmodern notions of the sublime to show that the gendered politics and effacement of nature, central to the modern sublime, especially in Kant's account, are at the heart of the postmodern sublime as well. It turns to Lyotard's postmodern sublime to argue that this sublime is hard at work in feminist poststructuralism, especially the early texts of Judith Butler. The melting away of the extra-discursively real in these accounts tends to make feminist thinking incapable of meaningfully articulating our relations to the natural world and to one another. Yet these very relations are necessarily tied to powerful aesthetic experiences of beauty and sublimity.Less
In the 1980s, this book contends, an uncritical affirmation of anti-essentialism turned this important feminist critique into a disciplinary dogmatism that constrained and homogenized feminist thinking. Feminist work in the academy became forgetful of both women and nature, and began to exchange an engaged politics for the intensity of sublime experience in its postmodern form. This book works between the modern and postmodern notions of the sublime to show that the gendered politics and effacement of nature, central to the modern sublime, especially in Kant's account, are at the heart of the postmodern sublime as well. It turns to Lyotard's postmodern sublime to argue that this sublime is hard at work in feminist poststructuralism, especially the early texts of Judith Butler. The melting away of the extra-discursively real in these accounts tends to make feminist thinking incapable of meaningfully articulating our relations to the natural world and to one another. Yet these very relations are necessarily tied to powerful aesthetic experiences of beauty and sublimity.
W. G. Runciman (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263297
- eISBN:
- 9780191734519
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263297.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
These chapters offer penetrating insights into the events and controversies that have dominated the news agenda for the last two years. Never has the path to a British war been mapped so fully and ...
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These chapters offer penetrating insights into the events and controversies that have dominated the news agenda for the last two years. Never has the path to a British war been mapped so fully and swiftly as the road to Baghdad in 2002–3. Between them, the Hutton and Butler reports lifted the lid on the most intimate workings of government and those who strive to convert information into a weapon — whether they be a Prime Minister in Downing Street, an MI6 agent in the field, an intelligence analyst in Whitehall, or a journalist attempting to fuse fragments into hard copy. Within days of Lord Butler reporting on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, on British intelligence assessments of their quantity and lethality and on the ingredients of the Blair Cabinet's decision to go to war, the British Academy brought together a distinguished group of scholars and practitioners to probe the deeper themes at play in the rush of events and inquests. The chapters examine: the legal issues raised by the manner and content of Lord Hutton's inquiry; the light both Hutton and Butler shed on the Blair style of government; and the matter of trust between government, the governed and the news media.Less
These chapters offer penetrating insights into the events and controversies that have dominated the news agenda for the last two years. Never has the path to a British war been mapped so fully and swiftly as the road to Baghdad in 2002–3. Between them, the Hutton and Butler reports lifted the lid on the most intimate workings of government and those who strive to convert information into a weapon — whether they be a Prime Minister in Downing Street, an MI6 agent in the field, an intelligence analyst in Whitehall, or a journalist attempting to fuse fragments into hard copy. Within days of Lord Butler reporting on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, on British intelligence assessments of their quantity and lethality and on the ingredients of the Blair Cabinet's decision to go to war, the British Academy brought together a distinguished group of scholars and practitioners to probe the deeper themes at play in the rush of events and inquests. The chapters examine: the legal issues raised by the manner and content of Lord Hutton's inquiry; the light both Hutton and Butler shed on the Blair style of government; and the matter of trust between government, the governed and the news media.
Rachel Nelson
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197266748
- eISBN:
- 9780191938146
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266748.003.0011
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This chapter focuses on the different tactics Emily Jacir uses in her varied art practice to trouble narratives of the Palestinian occupation. It tracks through notable artworks including Where We ...
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This chapter focuses on the different tactics Emily Jacir uses in her varied art practice to trouble narratives of the Palestinian occupation. It tracks through notable artworks including Where We Come From (2001–03), Sexy Semite (2002), and ex libris (2010–12), and attempts by Jacir to reveal the discursive frameworks which normalise the atrocities in Palestine. Thinking with scholars including Achille Mbembe and Judith Butler, this chapter traces the strategies the artist uses to communicate the conflict outside of these discursive traps that continually interpret and produce the oppressive reality in Palestine. And, it follows Jacir in asking, what would it take to remake (transform) the sensibility of the conflict in Palestine?Less
This chapter focuses on the different tactics Emily Jacir uses in her varied art practice to trouble narratives of the Palestinian occupation. It tracks through notable artworks including Where We Come From (2001–03), Sexy Semite (2002), and ex libris (2010–12), and attempts by Jacir to reveal the discursive frameworks which normalise the atrocities in Palestine. Thinking with scholars including Achille Mbembe and Judith Butler, this chapter traces the strategies the artist uses to communicate the conflict outside of these discursive traps that continually interpret and produce the oppressive reality in Palestine. And, it follows Jacir in asking, what would it take to remake (transform) the sensibility of the conflict in Palestine?
Robert Tobin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199641567
- eISBN:
- 9780191738418
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641567.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This brief postscript ends the monograph by recalling the Hubert Butler Centenary Celebration held in October 2000 at Kilkenny Castle. The gathering brought together a wide range of Butler's ...
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This brief postscript ends the monograph by recalling the Hubert Butler Centenary Celebration held in October 2000 at Kilkenny Castle. The gathering brought together a wide range of Butler's admirers, as well as some of his critics. The then Mayor of Kilkenny, Paul Cuddihy, formally apologized to Butler's family for his social ostracism by the local community at the time of the Papal Nuncio Incident in 1952.Less
This brief postscript ends the monograph by recalling the Hubert Butler Centenary Celebration held in October 2000 at Kilkenny Castle. The gathering brought together a wide range of Butler's admirers, as well as some of his critics. The then Mayor of Kilkenny, Paul Cuddihy, formally apologized to Butler's family for his social ostracism by the local community at the time of the Papal Nuncio Incident in 1952.
David M. Armstrong
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199590612
- eISBN:
- 9780191723391
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199590612.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
It is argued that particulars have only a ‘loose and popular’ identity over time (Bishop Butler), ‘perdurantist’ rather than ‘endurantist’. For an unchanging particular we need to go to a ...
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It is argued that particulars have only a ‘loose and popular’ identity over time (Bishop Butler), ‘perdurantist’ rather than ‘endurantist’. For an unchanging particular we need to go to a four‐dimensional object, a ‘space‐time worm’. Such an object is primarily held together by a causal relation (immanent causation in W.E. Johnson's terminology). Following Russell, an ordinary particular can be described as a ‘causal line’. Particulars are contingent entities.Less
It is argued that particulars have only a ‘loose and popular’ identity over time (Bishop Butler), ‘perdurantist’ rather than ‘endurantist’. For an unchanging particular we need to go to a four‐dimensional object, a ‘space‐time worm’. Such an object is primarily held together by a causal relation (immanent causation in W.E. Johnson's terminology). Following Russell, an ordinary particular can be described as a ‘causal line’. Particulars are contingent entities.
Barbara Caine
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198204336
- eISBN:
- 9780191676215
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204336.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Social History
This is a study of Victorian feminism which focuses on four leading feminists: Emily Davies, Frances Power Cobbe, Josephine Butler, and Millicent Garrett Fawcett. This approach enables the book to ...
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This is a study of Victorian feminism which focuses on four leading feminists: Emily Davies, Frances Power Cobbe, Josephine Butler, and Millicent Garrett Fawcett. This approach enables the book to uncover the range, diversity, and complexity of Victorian feminism, and to examine the relationship between personal experience and feminist commitment. The book sets its carefully researched biographical studies of the four women, each with her own fascinating history, in the context of the Victorian feminist movement. It explores the ideas and strategies of feminists in the late 19th century, analysing the tensions which arose as they sought to achieve their aims. In particular, the book traces the complex relationship between party politics and feminist commitment.Less
This is a study of Victorian feminism which focuses on four leading feminists: Emily Davies, Frances Power Cobbe, Josephine Butler, and Millicent Garrett Fawcett. This approach enables the book to uncover the range, diversity, and complexity of Victorian feminism, and to examine the relationship between personal experience and feminist commitment. The book sets its carefully researched biographical studies of the four women, each with her own fascinating history, in the context of the Victorian feminist movement. It explores the ideas and strategies of feminists in the late 19th century, analysing the tensions which arose as they sought to achieve their aims. In particular, the book traces the complex relationship between party politics and feminist commitment.
Christopher Tyerman
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198227960
- eISBN:
- 9780191678776
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198227960.003.0019
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History, British and Irish Modern History
Since the 18th century, the myth or myths of Harrow School provided consistent support to the practical efforts of governors and masters to sustain the institution. The memories of former schoolboys ...
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Since the 18th century, the myth or myths of Harrow School provided consistent support to the practical efforts of governors and masters to sustain the institution. The memories of former schoolboys are notoriously pliable, yet they provide the basis upon which their later support or disapproval is based. Those working within the institution rarely bother to question whatever interpretation is currently fashionable. Until the mid-19th century, Harrow and Harrovians treasured an image of rowdy independence. From Charles Vaughan and Montagu Butler, previous assumptions of power and rule became self-conscious and sought justification in the idea of duty, religion, and manliness. These found a voice with Edward Bowen. Both were some way removed from the daily routine of school life, yet provided the intellectual and cultural framework in which members and observers of the school interpreted their experiences. The role of sentiment was and is fundamental not just to understanding the school's history but to how it actually operates.Less
Since the 18th century, the myth or myths of Harrow School provided consistent support to the practical efforts of governors and masters to sustain the institution. The memories of former schoolboys are notoriously pliable, yet they provide the basis upon which their later support or disapproval is based. Those working within the institution rarely bother to question whatever interpretation is currently fashionable. Until the mid-19th century, Harrow and Harrovians treasured an image of rowdy independence. From Charles Vaughan and Montagu Butler, previous assumptions of power and rule became self-conscious and sought justification in the idea of duty, religion, and manliness. These found a voice with Edward Bowen. Both were some way removed from the daily routine of school life, yet provided the intellectual and cultural framework in which members and observers of the school interpreted their experiences. The role of sentiment was and is fundamental not just to understanding the school's history but to how it actually operates.
Margaret D. Kamitsuka
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195311624
- eISBN:
- 9780199785643
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195311624.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
How can we respect the irreducible diversity of women's experiences and unmask entrenched forms of privilege in feminist theological discourse? This book offers proposals on how to address the ...
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How can we respect the irreducible diversity of women's experiences and unmask entrenched forms of privilege in feminist theological discourse? This book offers proposals on how to address the challenge of difference for constructive theological purposes. Toward this end, the objective of this book is three-fold: 1) to make the case for why ongoing attentiveness to differences of race and sexuality is needed in order to avoid the imposition of white racial privilege and heterosexual privilege; 2) to make creative use of poststructuralism principally (Judith Butler, Michel Foucault), but also postcolonial, queer, and other theoretical resources in order to complicate our understanding of embodied selfhood, moral agency, and empowerment; and 3) to make constructive proposals in light of those theories on methodological issues (e.g., appeals to women's experience, to the erotic, or to women's solidarity), on hermeneutical issues (e.g., white feminist uses of the literature of women of color or interpreting biblical texts that harbor patriarchal, imperialist, heteronormative, and other biases), and on doctrinal issues (e.g., sin, creation in the image of God, and christology). New theoretical resources are indispensable for analyzing divisive issues in feminist theology today, and for carving out new avenues for critical negotiation with a religious tradition that feminists see as both alienating and sustaining, repressive and empowering.Less
How can we respect the irreducible diversity of women's experiences and unmask entrenched forms of privilege in feminist theological discourse? This book offers proposals on how to address the challenge of difference for constructive theological purposes. Toward this end, the objective of this book is three-fold: 1) to make the case for why ongoing attentiveness to differences of race and sexuality is needed in order to avoid the imposition of white racial privilege and heterosexual privilege; 2) to make creative use of poststructuralism principally (Judith Butler, Michel Foucault), but also postcolonial, queer, and other theoretical resources in order to complicate our understanding of embodied selfhood, moral agency, and empowerment; and 3) to make constructive proposals in light of those theories on methodological issues (e.g., appeals to women's experience, to the erotic, or to women's solidarity), on hermeneutical issues (e.g., white feminist uses of the literature of women of color or interpreting biblical texts that harbor patriarchal, imperialist, heteronormative, and other biases), and on doctrinal issues (e.g., sin, creation in the image of God, and christology). New theoretical resources are indispensable for analyzing divisive issues in feminist theology today, and for carving out new avenues for critical negotiation with a religious tradition that feminists see as both alienating and sustaining, repressive and empowering.
Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter focuses on Judith Butler's early work in order to clarify some central stakes (or mis-takes) of feminist postmodernism. It begins by acknowledging and responding to her insistence that ...
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This chapter focuses on Judith Butler's early work in order to clarify some central stakes (or mis-takes) of feminist postmodernism. It begins by acknowledging and responding to her insistence that the term “postmodernism” is misleading and masks a “ruse of authority” that distorts rather than clarifies the issues at hand. It is argued that establishing the feminist postmodern over and against a foreclosed“essentialism” amounts to a disavowal of the realm of necessity. A dual conception of “nature” as “human nature” and the natural world is foreclosed at the moment that inaugurates the textual space in which feminist postmodernism sets to work. This disavowed realm returns on the inside of Butler's theory as a discursive “nature,” which makes constant trouble in regards to the subject's agency, the subject's freedom. It is shown that Butler's approach to the relation between extradiscursive being and speech authorizes the displacement of feminism from its foundation, but not a foundation in the unitary subject so much as a foundation in a certain set of historical projects. The return of the repressed realm of necessity (or otherwise said, the repressed relation to the earth) in Butler's early texts, its return as discursive determinacy, pushes toward exactly what Butler turns to in her later work: the theme of embodied vulnerability in relation to other persons.Less
This chapter focuses on Judith Butler's early work in order to clarify some central stakes (or mis-takes) of feminist postmodernism. It begins by acknowledging and responding to her insistence that the term “postmodernism” is misleading and masks a “ruse of authority” that distorts rather than clarifies the issues at hand. It is argued that establishing the feminist postmodern over and against a foreclosed“essentialism” amounts to a disavowal of the realm of necessity. A dual conception of “nature” as “human nature” and the natural world is foreclosed at the moment that inaugurates the textual space in which feminist postmodernism sets to work. This disavowed realm returns on the inside of Butler's theory as a discursive “nature,” which makes constant trouble in regards to the subject's agency, the subject's freedom. It is shown that Butler's approach to the relation between extradiscursive being and speech authorizes the displacement of feminism from its foundation, but not a foundation in the unitary subject so much as a foundation in a certain set of historical projects. The return of the repressed realm of necessity (or otherwise said, the repressed relation to the earth) in Butler's early texts, its return as discursive determinacy, pushes toward exactly what Butler turns to in her later work: the theme of embodied vulnerability in relation to other persons.
Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter focuses on a feminist account of the body that returns it to its flesh and blood, while taking into account the theoretical developments that turned the body into a text. Topics ...
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This chapter focuses on a feminist account of the body that returns it to its flesh and blood, while taking into account the theoretical developments that turned the body into a text. Topics discussed include history notes on feminism and the body, Judith Butler's work and the textualization of the body, Butler on Merleau-Ponty, and Merleau-Ponty on the body and place.Less
This chapter focuses on a feminist account of the body that returns it to its flesh and blood, while taking into account the theoretical developments that turned the body into a text. Topics discussed include history notes on feminism and the body, Judith Butler's work and the textualization of the body, Butler on Merleau-Ponty, and Merleau-Ponty on the body and place.
Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter takes up the notion of vulnerability in the face of alterity that is the foundation for Freeman's “feminine sublime.” It traces similar notions in Butler's book of post-9/11 essays, ...
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This chapter takes up the notion of vulnerability in the face of alterity that is the foundation for Freeman's “feminine sublime.” It traces similar notions in Butler's book of post-9/11 essays, Precarious Life, and in Eva Kittay's ground-breaking book in feminist care ethics, Love's Labor. It is argued that the dependence these authors find at the very heart of our intersubjective relationships is also at the heart of our relationship to the natural world — and that these relations of dependence are the irrevocable aspect of the human condition that both lends itself to and is disclosed in sublime experience. The ethical and political implications of this vulnerability to others can be temporarily denied or thwarted by the subject who flees dependence, but they must ultimately be affirmed if we are to live these relations in aesthetically, ethically, and politically sustainable ways.Less
This chapter takes up the notion of vulnerability in the face of alterity that is the foundation for Freeman's “feminine sublime.” It traces similar notions in Butler's book of post-9/11 essays, Precarious Life, and in Eva Kittay's ground-breaking book in feminist care ethics, Love's Labor. It is argued that the dependence these authors find at the very heart of our intersubjective relationships is also at the heart of our relationship to the natural world — and that these relations of dependence are the irrevocable aspect of the human condition that both lends itself to and is disclosed in sublime experience. The ethical and political implications of this vulnerability to others can be temporarily denied or thwarted by the subject who flees dependence, but they must ultimately be affirmed if we are to live these relations in aesthetically, ethically, and politically sustainable ways.
Jennifer Radden
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195151657
- eISBN:
- 9780199849253
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151657.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter presents Samuel Butler's discussion of melancholy. The work Characters, from which the following sketch of the melancholy man is taken, was written between 1667 and 1669. Butler's volume ...
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This chapter presents Samuel Butler's discussion of melancholy. The work Characters, from which the following sketch of the melancholy man is taken, was written between 1667 and 1669. Butler's volume of characters contains almost 200 different human types he observed in the society about him in Restoration England. As well as the melancholy man, he sketched the Bumpkin or Country Squire, the Hypocritical Man, the Huffing Courtier, the Catholic, the Curious Man, the Proud Man, and the Hypocritical Nonconformist. In this text, melancholy is portrayed both as a normal variation of human personality and as a pathological condition, and no tension seems to attach to this seeming contradiction. In keeping with the tradition of characters, Butler's melancholy man is at times no more than a dispositional type. On the other hand, the melancholy man is said to see visions and hear voices, and he seems incapable of distinguishing accurate from inaccurate perceptual experience.Less
This chapter presents Samuel Butler's discussion of melancholy. The work Characters, from which the following sketch of the melancholy man is taken, was written between 1667 and 1669. Butler's volume of characters contains almost 200 different human types he observed in the society about him in Restoration England. As well as the melancholy man, he sketched the Bumpkin or Country Squire, the Hypocritical Man, the Huffing Courtier, the Catholic, the Curious Man, the Proud Man, and the Hypocritical Nonconformist. In this text, melancholy is portrayed both as a normal variation of human personality and as a pathological condition, and no tension seems to attach to this seeming contradiction. In keeping with the tradition of characters, Butler's melancholy man is at times no more than a dispositional type. On the other hand, the melancholy man is said to see visions and hear voices, and he seems incapable of distinguishing accurate from inaccurate perceptual experience.
Margaret D. Kamitsuka
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195311624
- eISBN:
- 9780199785643
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195311624.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter interrogates the assumption of natural maleness and femaleness found in feminist theological writings on the imago dei and so-called women's sin. A sex binarism is problematic because of ...
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This chapter interrogates the assumption of natural maleness and femaleness found in feminist theological writings on the imago dei and so-called women's sin. A sex binarism is problematic because of its link to heteronormativity (the notion that heterosexuality is the only legitimate form of sexual desire) and thus to heterosexism. Judith Butler's poststructuralist theory of performativity is used to deconstruct that sex binarism. The theory of performative sexed identity is applied theologically in order to reformulate the notions of sin and women's creation in the image of God. The chapter's critical examination of Grace Jantzen's alternative proposals about women's selfhood and desires opens up a larger issue of how in the process of rethinking sex, sin, and the imago dei, the feminist theologian can rediscover desire for the tradition itself.Less
This chapter interrogates the assumption of natural maleness and femaleness found in feminist theological writings on the imago dei and so-called women's sin. A sex binarism is problematic because of its link to heteronormativity (the notion that heterosexuality is the only legitimate form of sexual desire) and thus to heterosexism. Judith Butler's poststructuralist theory of performativity is used to deconstruct that sex binarism. The theory of performative sexed identity is applied theologically in order to reformulate the notions of sin and women's creation in the image of God. The chapter's critical examination of Grace Jantzen's alternative proposals about women's selfhood and desires opens up a larger issue of how in the process of rethinking sex, sin, and the imago dei, the feminist theologian can rediscover desire for the tradition itself.
David Kyuman Kim
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195319828
- eISBN:
- 9780199785667
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195319828.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter focuses on an alternative vision of agency found in what has come to be called the politics of difference. It presents a critical engagement with one of the most influential contemporary ...
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This chapter focuses on an alternative vision of agency found in what has come to be called the politics of difference. It presents a critical engagement with one of the most influential contemporary theorists of agency: Judith Butler. The chapter begins with some background on the politics of difference, specifically in the context of how it developed within feminist theory. It then moves to a sketch of Butler's work on agency, specifically her theory of performativity: from her early critiques of subjectivity and the (near) totalizing effects she grants to power, to her more recent work that nuances the claims about power and agency, specifically in light of her use and appropriation of the idea of melancholy/melancholia. It is argued that a comparison between Taylor and Butler shows how each of their projects begins with distinctive forms of melancholy that create the conditions for the possibility of agency. Butler's focus on the relationship between the social and the psyche/psychic life is a search for possibility and hope under conditions of subjection by power. This search also effectively marks Butler's work as a project of regenerating agency.Less
This chapter focuses on an alternative vision of agency found in what has come to be called the politics of difference. It presents a critical engagement with one of the most influential contemporary theorists of agency: Judith Butler. The chapter begins with some background on the politics of difference, specifically in the context of how it developed within feminist theory. It then moves to a sketch of Butler's work on agency, specifically her theory of performativity: from her early critiques of subjectivity and the (near) totalizing effects she grants to power, to her more recent work that nuances the claims about power and agency, specifically in light of her use and appropriation of the idea of melancholy/melancholia. It is argued that a comparison between Taylor and Butler shows how each of their projects begins with distinctive forms of melancholy that create the conditions for the possibility of agency. Butler's focus on the relationship between the social and the psyche/psychic life is a search for possibility and hope under conditions of subjection by power. This search also effectively marks Butler's work as a project of regenerating agency.
David Kyuman Kim
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195319828
- eISBN:
- 9780199785667
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195319828.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter examines Taylor's and Butler's accounts of melancholy and agency. It is argued that the form of melancholy shared by their accounts is a key feature of symbolic loss in the constitution ...
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This chapter examines Taylor's and Butler's accounts of melancholy and agency. It is argued that the form of melancholy shared by their accounts is a key feature of symbolic loss in the constitution of the self, and symbolic loss has a central role in creating the conditions for the possibility of new modes of agency. The convention in appropriating melancholy follows the comparative example Freud established between mourning and melancholia (melancholy), in which the character of loss and the reluctance to give up on an object of love in the latter (melancholia/melancholy) takes its lead and form from the former (mourning).Less
This chapter examines Taylor's and Butler's accounts of melancholy and agency. It is argued that the form of melancholy shared by their accounts is a key feature of symbolic loss in the constitution of the self, and symbolic loss has a central role in creating the conditions for the possibility of new modes of agency. The convention in appropriating melancholy follows the comparative example Freud established between mourning and melancholia (melancholy), in which the character of loss and the reluctance to give up on an object of love in the latter (melancholia/melancholy) takes its lead and form from the former (mourning).
David Kyuman Kim
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195319828
- eISBN:
- 9780199785667
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195319828.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Agency as melancholic freedom is deeply ambivalent. It speaks to the uncanny experience of feeling indebted to, yet alienated from, the glorious legacies of modernity: the legacies of liberation, ...
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Agency as melancholic freedom is deeply ambivalent. It speaks to the uncanny experience of feeling indebted to, yet alienated from, the glorious legacies of modernity: the legacies of liberation, emancipation, and autonomy. Late modern and postmodern agency share a concern for the banality of freedom, i.e., the loss of urgency that once attended the great struggles for freedom and emancipation from the forces of oppressive authority and dehumanizing domination. Given the banality of freedom — that is, the ways in which we speak about freedom either through hollow words or in hushed, sotto voce tones — it would seem that it is impossible to avoid talking about ambivalence when raising the subject of agency in our times. This chapter brings Taylor and Butler — both of whom express a fair degree of ambivalence — into conversation with another theorist of ambivalence, Max Weber. It is argued that the sotto voce of the banality of freedom sings with the modern prophetic spirit/soul described by Weber.Less
Agency as melancholic freedom is deeply ambivalent. It speaks to the uncanny experience of feeling indebted to, yet alienated from, the glorious legacies of modernity: the legacies of liberation, emancipation, and autonomy. Late modern and postmodern agency share a concern for the banality of freedom, i.e., the loss of urgency that once attended the great struggles for freedom and emancipation from the forces of oppressive authority and dehumanizing domination. Given the banality of freedom — that is, the ways in which we speak about freedom either through hollow words or in hushed, sotto voce tones — it would seem that it is impossible to avoid talking about ambivalence when raising the subject of agency in our times. This chapter brings Taylor and Butler — both of whom express a fair degree of ambivalence — into conversation with another theorist of ambivalence, Max Weber. It is argued that the sotto voce of the banality of freedom sings with the modern prophetic spirit/soul described by Weber.
Peter McDonald
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199235803
- eISBN:
- 9780191714542
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199235803.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Do we want to read poetry, or just like having a few poets to talk about? The history of poetry in 20th-century Britain and Ireland is one which ends with the assimilation of successful poets into a ...
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Do we want to read poetry, or just like having a few poets to talk about? The history of poetry in 20th-century Britain and Ireland is one which ends with the assimilation of successful poets into a media culture. It is also, however, another history, one of form and authority, in which certain poets found modes and pitches of resistance to the seeming inevitabilities of their times. In this history, it is the authority of poetry (and not the media-processed poet) which is at stake in the integrity of poetic form. This book offers a controversial reading of 20th-century British and Irish poetry centred on six figures, all of whom are critics as well as poets: William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Wystan Hugh Auden, Louis MacNeice, Seamus Heaney, and Geoffrey Hill. Yeats's centrality to 20th-century poetry — and the problem many poets and critics had, or still have, with that centrality — is a major focus of the book. The book argues that it is in the strengths, possibilities, perplexities, and certainties of the poetic form that poetry's authority in a distrustful cultural climate remains most seriously alive.Less
Do we want to read poetry, or just like having a few poets to talk about? The history of poetry in 20th-century Britain and Ireland is one which ends with the assimilation of successful poets into a media culture. It is also, however, another history, one of form and authority, in which certain poets found modes and pitches of resistance to the seeming inevitabilities of their times. In this history, it is the authority of poetry (and not the media-processed poet) which is at stake in the integrity of poetic form. This book offers a controversial reading of 20th-century British and Irish poetry centred on six figures, all of whom are critics as well as poets: William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Wystan Hugh Auden, Louis MacNeice, Seamus Heaney, and Geoffrey Hill. Yeats's centrality to 20th-century poetry — and the problem many poets and critics had, or still have, with that centrality — is a major focus of the book. The book argues that it is in the strengths, possibilities, perplexities, and certainties of the poetic form that poetry's authority in a distrustful cultural climate remains most seriously alive.
Henry Sidgwick
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198250234
- eISBN:
- 9780191598432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198250231.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
In his reply to Barratt's criticisms of his Methods of Ethics, Sidgwick states that Barratt misapprehends his position by overlooking the fact that he reviews various methods of ethics from a neutral ...
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In his reply to Barratt's criticisms of his Methods of Ethics, Sidgwick states that Barratt misapprehends his position by overlooking the fact that he reviews various methods of ethics from a neutral and impartial standpoint. Following Butler, Sidgwick holds that reasonable self‐love and conscience are the two primary principles in human life. He differs from Butler on which precepts of conscience are reasonable, and maintains that the central formula of conscience holds that one ought not to prefer one's own good to the greater good of another. To Barratt's challenge that this confutes the principle of Rational Egoism, Sidgwick replies that the principle is contradicted, not confuted.Less
In his reply to Barratt's criticisms of his Methods of Ethics, Sidgwick states that Barratt misapprehends his position by overlooking the fact that he reviews various methods of ethics from a neutral and impartial standpoint. Following Butler, Sidgwick holds that reasonable self‐love and conscience are the two primary principles in human life. He differs from Butler on which precepts of conscience are reasonable, and maintains that the central formula of conscience holds that one ought not to prefer one's own good to the greater good of another. To Barratt's challenge that this confutes the principle of Rational Egoism, Sidgwick replies that the principle is contradicted, not confuted.
David O. Brink
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199266401
- eISBN:
- 9780191600906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199266409.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter focuses on Green's arguments about the role of self-consciousness in practical responsibility or moral personality. Green denies that moral responsibility is threatened by determinism ...
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This chapter focuses on Green's arguments about the role of self-consciousness in practical responsibility or moral personality. Green denies that moral responsibility is threatened by determinism and requires indeterminism. He believes that indeterminism is a greater threat to responsibility, inasmuch as it is unclear why we should hold a person accountable for actions that are not due to his character. Green shows the influence of a long tradition of thinking about agency that extends back to the Greeks and is given forceful articulation by moderns, such as Butler, Reid, and Kant.Less
This chapter focuses on Green's arguments about the role of self-consciousness in practical responsibility or moral personality. Green denies that moral responsibility is threatened by determinism and requires indeterminism. He believes that indeterminism is a greater threat to responsibility, inasmuch as it is unclear why we should hold a person accountable for actions that are not due to his character. Green shows the influence of a long tradition of thinking about agency that extends back to the Greeks and is given forceful articulation by moderns, such as Butler, Reid, and Kant.
David O. Brink
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199266401
- eISBN:
- 9780191600906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199266409.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter focuses on Good's views about the content of good will. Green rejects the hedonism that he finds in the utilitarian tradition and that he associates with a naturalistic approach to ...
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This chapter focuses on Good's views about the content of good will. Green rejects the hedonism that he finds in the utilitarian tradition and that he associates with a naturalistic approach to ethics. He focuses his criticism of hedonism on Mill's claims in Utilitarianism. One of Green's main complaints is that the plausibility of evaluative hedonism rests on a commitment (perhaps implicit) to psychological hedonism, which rests on the fallacy, which Butler exposed, of inferring that pleasure is the object of desire from the fact that it is expected that pleasure will attend the satisfaction of desire. Green' s Butlerian doubts about psychological hedonism are examined.Less
This chapter focuses on Good's views about the content of good will. Green rejects the hedonism that he finds in the utilitarian tradition and that he associates with a naturalistic approach to ethics. He focuses his criticism of hedonism on Mill's claims in Utilitarianism. One of Green's main complaints is that the plausibility of evaluative hedonism rests on a commitment (perhaps implicit) to psychological hedonism, which rests on the fallacy, which Butler exposed, of inferring that pleasure is the object of desire from the fact that it is expected that pleasure will attend the satisfaction of desire. Green' s Butlerian doubts about psychological hedonism are examined.
